Burn
by Missmishka
Summary: Inspired by the promo for the new episodes coming in February, what happens when Carol finds the ears.  Slow building character and 'ship for Daryl. Rated for language. Spoilers up through the 2x08 sneak peeks. Part 14/? Uploaded.
1. Chapter 1

When I saw the preview, I got it in my head that Daryl's ear necklace was hanging from a peg in the barn or stable when Carol saw it and this idea just took root. I've watched the preview in frame by frame motion and know that it's hanging in the middle of the camp, but we're all just gonna ignore that because my idea is so much better. :-P

**_Burn, by MissMishka_**

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.

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><p><em>Fuck.<em>

Daryl knew he'd spoken the thought aloud when Carol's hand flinched guiltily away from the ears and she turned to face him. He cussed again without care of her hearing the harsh words as he stomped across the space between them to yank the necklace down.

"What are you doing in here?"

He stuffed the trophies into his pocket with a little guilt of his own, never having meant for her to see the damned thing. She was silent for long enough that he was forced to look at her, but he hated to think of the fear and disgust she'd surely have on her face.

In those expressive eyes.

That crystal blue gaze was on him, but there was no fear or disgust and he was reminded painfully of how **in**expressive those eyes had been of late. If there was anything in the frozen wasteland of her soul showing in that stare, he supposed he could see some curiosity if he really reached for it.

"Rick was looking for you," she finally answered his question, that faintness of spirit also in her voice as she whispered. "Dale said you'd probably be in here," a frown knit her brow as she looked around as if just realizing where they were. "_Why_ are you in here?"

Not feeling a need or desire to explain to her, he turned back to the task he'd assigned himself to. He could only be thankful she hadn't stumbled in there a few days ago, before he had started, as he took up the pitchfork to begin mucking out the last corner of the barn. Her gaze was like a weight on his back. He still couldn't sense a damned thing from her, but he felt those eyes like a pressure in the center of his back, bearing on his shoulders till he ached from fighting to stay upright.

"What?" he finally flung the tool aside and whipped around to face her.

"Why are _you_ in here?" she rephrased her question with the same confusion on her face.

_Damned good question, _he mused, knowing that those were just the kind best left unanswered or dissected.

"What?" he scoffed, hoping more than seeing an answer in her expression. "You worried about me?"

A faint frown pinched her lips at his attitude. It faded to blankness as he began to stalk towards her. Then confusion returned as she began to instinctively back away from him when he showed no signs of stopping.

"You cut off those ears," she observed belatedly, as if changing to **_that_ **particular subject would cool him down.

As it was a statement of fact that they both knew, he didn't give her any response as her back ran up against the post he'd had the necklace hanging from. He had her pinned and they both froze there, each wondering what the hell he was going to do.

"How…" her voice cracked as she found a new question and turned her head to the side to ask it of the otherwise empty barn. "How many would you have, if you'd always taken the ears to show?"

_Too many_, he thought, dropping his head to rest against the wooden beam, face hovering dangerously close to the warm rest of her shoulder.

He felt her gulp and knew his throat moved on a similar convulsive swallow immediately afterward. This was a different proximity than they'd shared before and he knew how thin the ice was he ventured out on.

"Why did _you_ come looking for me?" he asked, voice quiet and tense as the cleanliness of her scent filled his nostrils, introducing the new topic.

"I…" her head turned and her face was right fucking _there_, "I don't know."

His eyes didn't lift to meet hers, they stayed locked on the lips that moved so softly over the hesitant words. When some opportunities presented themselves, he knew to just reach out and take them if it was anything he had the slightest hankering for. The timing was all wrong, but that was the story of his life. Dixon luck, like the men of the bloodline, always ran to the bad and there would never be a "right" time for this, so he just twisted his head around the fraction of an inch it took to press him mouth to hers.

He felt the freeze of her body-lungs and muscles seizing in surprise at his action. The sharp, shocked inhalation of breath through her nose tickled the hairs of his moustache. His hands curled into the post behind them as the softness of the whole of her reminded him vividly of how long it had been since he'd had a woman.

How long it had been since he felt _any _kind of softness.

That stray reminder of pain and loss hardened his lips and he pulled his left hand forward to grip the back of her head. The action unfroze her and, with a startled noise which he quickly swallowed, her hands fluttered up in the breath of space between their bodies. His fingers tightened in reflexive anticipation of her pushing at his chest for freedom, but her lips just got softer while her fingers settled lightly on his shoulders.

The surprise was his at that moment, momentarily stilling his lips when his body froze. She reacted to his pause with a desperation that shouldn't have shocked him, given the shellshock she was pulling out of. _Or at least, _he hoped_, she may be pulling through._

Those tentative fingers turned into claws that climbed over the rise of his shoulders to pull at his back for closer contact. Her mouth opened with intent, lips firming as they twisted against his own for a response. His body gave it automatically, tongue rushing out to spear into the opening she gave while his chest pressed her hard against the post. His mind, though…his mind was gone. Lost in this moment he had no explanation for and racing ahead to images of their bodies rolling on the dirt floor of the building.

Or just staying like this.

Standing.

Clawing.

Bodies twisting and writing together to find purchase and just the right position for satisfaction.

He'd never done it standing, but had seen it in enough movies to let the image work him up. And he could so easily _see _them that way. Could practically feel it already.

Carol was doing this panting thing that ghosted the exhalations from her nose over his ear and the shudder that went through him was intense enough he wouldn't have been surprised to find his pants growing wet when the tremor ended. The twinge of discomfort he felt when her leg hitched up around his waist and her crotch rubbed against his erection told him he hadn't come yet, though.

The realization of how close he was and, more so, how badly he _wanted_ to climax with her…_in her…_was the slap in the face she should have given him. He froze against her again, this time with every intention of stopping their madness. Her whimper as his lips pulled from hers twisted his gut and threatened to destroy what resolve he had, but the flash of reality he saw as his eyes slitted opened was all he needed.

A wheelbarrow shouldn't symbolize nightmares, but that red one did.

The clench of her leg and grip of her hands did nothing to pull him from the memory of countless trips made filling that cart with the horrific refuse from inside this place that had been the last shelter for Sophia's desecrated body.

"Hell, woman," he huffed out, channeling Merle with the rough way he grabbed her thigh to hitch her higher so the notch between her legs ground against his still shamefully hard flesh. "I am _all_ up for a roll in the hay."

With feigned ignorance to the impact of his words, he nuzzled into her neck, enjoying one last breath of her before her clawing to get closer became a frantic grapple to get free of him. He let her break away gladly, not even flinching as her knee caught his groin in passing, accidental or deliberate neither of them really knew. It pained something in him to watch her stumble away into the open area of the barn, but he viciously squashed that part, knowing it would be the death of him in this new world. Her chest heaved with the deep, panicked breaths she took in as she pivoted in circles to let her eyes wildly scan the interior of the place.

Finally, he saw something back in those eyes of hers and his fingernails bit into the palms of his hands to keep from going to her and do something, _anything_, to banish the horror he saw relived in her gaze. Her hands twisted together against her heart and his somehow managed to curl into even tighter fists that he barely managed to keep from pounding on the post behind him until it collapsed and took the whole bedamned structure with it. She looked both haunted and hunted by the memory of her dead daughter having been in this place just days ago.

"Oh, God in Heaven, what have I done," she asked of the ground as her body abruptly stopped moving and her head dropped forward.

That she still spoke to a God angered him.

That she felt any guilt for what _he_ had done just pissed him off.

That she was crying again for the first time since the tears had eerily ceased with the burial of Sophia made something in him snap.

His hand was on her shoulder, whipping her around to face him before he even felt his feet move.

The crack from her belated slap rang out in a sudden stillness in the air before either of them even felt the blow.

Again, they froze in the position of that exact moment to insure it would remain vividly etched in their memories, just so, along with every other of their painful experiences. He broke the spell of shock with an unconscious flexing of facial muscles as his body finally realized it had been touched with none of the softness from moments before. _In fact_, he realized with the stinging of her hand shaped mark on his cheek, _the woman packed a whallop._

"It was nothing you did," he tried to assure her quietly.

"I kissed you," she argued, misunderstanding his meaning, cradling her hand to her breast and making him wonder distractedly how bad her palm stung. "I wanted to…"

Remembering what _he'd_ wanted to do and how close they had come to it made him ache with more than just a physical pain, but he focused on the hurt he had to cause her now for them both to get on by.

"It was only natural. All the death we've seen, a body craves to feel life. It's only natural-" he wasn't entirely sure he deserved the second slap just then.

He kept his head turned to the right as the force of her blow had turned it and was a little surprised to feel a split in his lip. Damned fool that he was, he could only hope she hadn't cut herself on his tooth as his lip had.

"_Nothing_ about this was natural," she declared emphatically. "Nothing."

His eyes twisted shut as he sensed her leaving.

It would have been easier and a great deal kinder to have just ripped his guts out rather than leave them in their current tangle, but he'd never had any kindness in life to expect it now. He kicked the damned wheelbarrow over, picked the pitchfork up and stabbed the tines violently into that damned wooden beam until some of the intensity of emotion wore off.

It was then that he too looked around the interior with haunted eyes, chest heaving from exertion. There was no ridding it of what had been inside, no matter how many trips he or anyone else made to take out the old filth and lay down new straw. Nothing would erase the taint of what had happened here and he knew the applied to more than just the Walkers that had been housed and fed inside like exotic pets then shot down like rabid animals outside the structure. Whether they stayed or went from this place, this structure was condemned.

They'd both maybe figure out some time later what the hell had just happened, but for now he only knew one thing.

As he pulled the string from his pocket, threw the damned ears off into the shadows and stomped out of the barn, he knew where to find matches.

And no matter what Rick and Hershel may have discussed and decided, that building was gonna fucking burn.

A/N: *Not* the idea I started with, but I like where it went & hope you all did, too. I love the emotional tangle I sense these two in and the theme inspires a thousand story ideas in me. So many ways it all could go...


	2. Chapter 2

Rick found him just as the smoke began to blow from the barn's opened doors. The other man stood over where Daryl reclined casually on the ground and they both stared at the building in silence. It would take forever for the structure to be consumed given that he hadn't felt it worth the waste of fuel to really set it off.

"Feel better now?"

"Beer'd help," Daryl answered with a slow exhalation of the smoke he'd just inhaled from the cigarette he had felt the moment deserved. "Marshmallows, too, maybe. For roasting."

His words had the desired effect as Rick snorted a laugh then sat down on the ground nearby.

"Any idea why I saw Carol running from here like the hounds of hell were chasing her?"

"Some," was all Daryl would say as the heated memory of bodies clinging and mouths pressing together tore through him.

"Any idea what you're doing there?"

"Not a fucking clue," he confessed bitterly, neither of them looking away from the barn for this discussion.

The flames started to show from the hayloft, which he'd known would burn easiest with all that straw. He'd like to think the aged wood would be consumed by the flames just as quickly, but both men knew the strength of the structure that had held over a dozen Walkers securely inside and no matter its age, that barn would not fall at their whim.

"Heard you were looking for me," Daryl finally broke the silence that had fallen comfortable between them again.

"Hershel's gone missing," the Deputy says carefully, lacking confidence in how his request would be taken when he got up the nerve to ask.

Daryl didn't need the words, though. The times he'd already been through with this man had given them an unspoken understanding that shocked them both. Tracking another person at that moment was the last fucking thing the redneck wanted, but he didn't voice that as he contemplated the glowing end of his Marbolo. Rick knew that, too, which is why he knew the other man hadn't put the request forward yet.

It wasn't long before the others began to draw towards the fire as it grew. No one made any suggestion as to putting it out and Daryl knew then that he should have followed his gut and done this after they'd buried the corpses. They all needed to see this thing turned to the same ashes as the hopes they'd dared to have that a little girl could have been found alive in all of this.

The pack of smokes extended toward him were a momentary surprise after he snuffed out the butt of his cigarette under the heel of his boot. He looked up to see Dale standing on the other side of him and the older man moved stiffly to sit on the dirt after Daryl accepted one of the cancer sticks.

He sensed a smug, brute satisfaction from somewhere behind him and didn't have to turn to know Shane was among the watchers at that point. Daryl wondered if Rick had run Hershel's absence by his friend, but knew from the lack of fury in the scene that Grimes had wisely chosen not to make any mention of it to the brawn of their group. Given the opinion the asshole had had and made known of their looking for Sophia, Daryl couldn't even imagine how ape shit Shane would go at their looking for the veterinarian. That was saying a damned lot, too, seeing as he was known for some bursts a fury himself.

After the display they'd witnessed, though, just days ago in this exact same spot, Daryl didn't even want to imagine what the other man may do to top it in another fit of rage when he learned that Rick was diverting energies for another search. The only real way the Officer could top letting the barn full of zombies loose was to kill one of the living and it wasn't any real stretch for Daryl to see that happening. He'd felt the itch of crosshairs on his own back of late when the other man was near. Didn't concern him much as he wasn't ignorant of the targeting as the jock thought he was. When he saw that same hate filled gaze focus on the either of the men who'd taken seats at his sides, though, Daryl felt his hackles rise.

A ripple of tension went through the group, drawing his mind from those thoughts, but he didn't have time to look up and investigate the source before Maggie stalked furiously through the place between Daryl and Rick. Liquid sloshed in the can she carried and he froze with his cigarette halfway to his lips as the girl twisted the gas cap off and flung it carelessly aside. She marched right up to the gaping doors and disappeared into the smoke for a moment that had every man present jumping to their feet even as a panicked Glenn raced toward the barn. She strode calm as you pleased from the building in a matter of mere seconds and didn't even flinch as the flames caught the fumes of fuel and ignited with a whoosh of explosion that brought half of the building crashing down.

_Damned if this wasn't a gal right after his own heart_, he mused with a smile of admiration as she turned her intensity on Rick and brushed off Glenn's fussing at her careless actions.

"You gonna help me find my dad now or is there grass you wanna watch grow," she snarled, uncaring of the effect her words had on Shane. "House has been needing a fresh coat for a few years now. Maybe we should all grab a brush and get to painting so's you can watch it dry next."

The protests and yelled threats began from all sides at that, causing Daryl to flick the butt in his hand off into the flames that were a little too close for his comfort. He wished for the intimidation of his bow as Shane puffed up and thrust himself in front of Maggie to take her place in Rick's face.

"Don't you even _**fucking**_ think it, man."

Daryl didn't have a chance to pull the muscled man away as Maggie beat them all to it.

"Stay out of this," she growled in a fierce voice that brooked no argument as she stood over the man. She'd pulled Shane around and dropped him with a knee to the groin and a right hook that awed them all with the speed and fury of her moves.

Any arguments seemed to leave the group with that and he saw how Rick's shoulders slumped in relief at having had someone else to handle his friend. _That_, Daryl knew, _was going to be a problem. _Confused, divided loyalties would get the Deputy killed in this place. That was one thing Daryl hated to share agreement with Shane on. Rush as he may into battle with the undead, Rick was damned near hopeless in handling conflict with the living.

Wordlessly, the group of searchers formed and left the burning barn to head back to the campsite and prepare to head out. Maggie took the lead with Glenn holding pace at her side and casting nervous glances at his girlfriend and back at the man on the ground staring daggers after them all as Andrea moved to offer assistance in his getting up. Rick was next in their short line and Daryl brought up the rear, wondering idly what the place would be like when they returned from their search.

She was just coming out of the RV when they got there and his stride stuttered as her gaze sought his. Having expected her to run and hide from him and not blaming her for the reaction, he ground to a stop and let his eyes ask the question his voice couldn't. He received no discernable answer, though, as she looked past him in worried confusion to the others gathering arms and supplies.

"We're leaving?"

"Hershel's gone missing," Rick answered her, his interjection breaking Daryl from her hold long enough to retrieve what he needed from his tent.

"…he's a grown man, he's not lost," she was arguing when he returned. "He'll come back when he's ready and if he doesn't…," she faltered and cast an apologetic look at Maggie. "He's a grown man."

"Ain't in his right mind," Daryl took the lead on addressing this one. "Grief does things to a person," their eyes met and they both knew his words were no longer about the missing man. "Hurt like what was caused by what we saw…it messes with you. Age has nothing to do with that. Can't leave it to him to decide something like this now," he broke their connection determinedly. "Owe him more than that despite it all."

The stitches under his hairline and on his side attested to that, just as he knew Rick was thinking of the son he still had thanks to the veterinarian's efforts.

Not knowing when exactly the man had set off, only that all vehicles and horses were accounted for, the quartet split. Maggie and Glenn off to saddle their horses for a search of the south and west. Daryl exchanged a quiet nod with Rick as it was understood that he'd take the lead once more in scouring the land for clues of where the wanderer may have gone if that path lay to the north and east.

Her eyes were heavy upon him with a concern that he refused to find any hope in. They exchanged no words as he began to move off. He couldn't resist looking back, though, and their gazes locked. Her hands weren't wringing in worry as they'd often done when he went off to look for Sophia. One arm was wrapped around her waist and her other hand was raised to press her fingertips to her lips. In their eyes, in that moment, was the memory of their mouths locked together with such heat and hunger. He twitched with a want to go back and kiss her again like some fool heading off to war with no real hope of returning to his sweetheart, but he didn't think like that even if it was the kind of move her gaze was asking for.

With a simple, noncommittal jerk of his head, he broke the moment and turned to leave. The look Rick gave him was easier to read and reply to as he passed the man who'd thoughtfully lingered to give the tracker that moment.

"Let's get this over with," he groused, letting the other man know that he was fine enough with heading off and leaving her behind.

But her eyes stayed on his back till they were out of sight and in the back of his mind. While his gaze began to pick apart the landscape for signs of anyone having passed through the area, the image of her fingers pressed to those soft lips was seared in the back of his mind and his body burned.


	3. Chapter 3

"Lori saw it, you know. I thought she was nuts, but I guess she had it right."

Daryl's steps neither paused nor faltered as Rick began to speak quietly. He'd known conversation would be coming with the expedition and didn't try to shush the other man for it. He wasn't about to respond, though, just to allow the Deputy to use him as a sounding board for whatever was running through his head.

The topic, though, that Grimes had chosen wasn't much help for what Daryl was dealing with in his own head.

"The evening you went out alone, before you got hurt, we got to talking about it," Rick continued, uncaring as Daryl ignored him in favor of squatting to check some print on the ground. "I couldn't for the life of me figure out why you were looking so hard for…"

They both froze at the thoughts that filled the blank left by Rick's words at that moment. That little girl would haunt them both for the rest of their days. Her ghost, Daryl knew, would be far more damaging to his mind than Merle's. He could fight his brother's memory, use the remembered and imagined taunts to fire himself up when the will to go on began to fade, but Sophia…

"She's pregnant," Rick said suddenly, startling Daryl.

This time his steps did falter as the words processed. Given the focus of his own mind, those two words immediately brought protest tearing through his thoughts as he replayed the nights in the camp when his ears had been a little too tuned to the family sheltered a little ways from the tent he'd shared with Merle. He'd heard many sounds of hurt and abuse from the other tent and fought the want to rush in and stop it, but he hadn't intervened in Ed Peletier's handling of his family. Daryl knew, though, that there was just no way that the man had had any relations with his wife for Carol to have gotten pregnant.

_She just couldn't be._

"I think she thinks it's Shane's," Daryl felt his lungs draw breath again at those words and he damned near blushed at realizing Rick had been talking about his own wife. "They…she thought I was dead, you see. I can't blame her for that."

_Sure you can,_ Daryl wanted to reply, but he kept his silence and shook his head sadly at the fresh hell that the other man had found himself in.

_But then, who among them wasn't dealing with some torment or another?_

Carol was right. Nothing about this was natural and the adjustment to the new normal was looking to be the death of them all.

Rick seemed on the verge of cutting open another vein when the snap of a twig pushed aside thought for action.

They spun in sync to locate the threat, finding it in the form of Walker thrashing against a tree trunk. A blur of bushy tail told Daryl that the zombie's lunch had just scampered off and it'd be looking to them for nourishment as soon as it caught their scent. Not about to give it a chance to rush them, he quickly lined up his shot and twitched his finger on the trigger to let loose the arrow that pinned the thing to that tree.

Before moving to retrieve the bolt, he cast a speaking glance over his shoulder at the other man, and Rick holstered his Colt with a chagrined twist of his mouth then mimed zipping his lips.

The morning crept along slowly, much as they did.

They reached the outskirts of town without having caught a sign of the farmer, but Daryl knew they'd push on til dark, even if the effort went as wasted as Sophia's search. Knowing that Walkers were always to be found in any remains of civilization, like towns and cities, they took a rest in the woods before venturing out.

Their bottles of water were warm as hell from the heat and the jerky only caused them to chug more of the liquid, but neither man complained. Once they'd finished the bottle they'd been sipping on up to that point, Daryl shouldered his crossbow and picked their path once more.

His eyes lit on the steeple of a church and instinct turned his steps in that direction. The glaring midday sun that dripped sweat from his face likely had much to do with the absence of Walkers, but he knew they'd stir from wherever they lurked to give chase if Rick or he made their presence known.

He glanced over his shoulder to convey his destination to the other man, but saw the way Grimes was already staring off at the church, jaw setting with grim determination. Like minded, they moved quickly through the deserted street, heads on a constant swivel and weapons alternating the side of the street each man swept visually. Cars and obstacles were minimal in this place; giving few places to duck for cover should a Walker appear, giving them cause for extra speed and care with their motions.

Once they'd crept up the cement stairs of the church, Rick holstered his Colt and traded it in for the machete on his hip. Daryl kept the bow at ready.

After an exchange of speaking glances, he fell back to cover the Deputy, who then tightened his grip on the hilt in his left hand and cautiously began to open the door with his right.

Their eyes were slow to adjust to the dim interior, only shafts of light making it through the boarded up windows, but they soon saw the man seated at a pew halfway up. It was Hershel, hands folded in prayer and leaning on the back of the seats in front of him. Unlike the last church they had been in, this one appeared empty save the farmer, but neither of them took such things on faith.

They split apart, Daryl taking the left and Rick the right to check the interior more thoroughly. Once they reached the altar without encountering anything fishy, Daryl gave the Deputy a shrug and lowered his crossbow. Rick kept his weapon in hand, though, and held up a hand for caution as he turned his attention to the veterinarian.

Given how the man hadn't moved in response to their presence, Daryl was relatively sure he _was _still a man, but the caution was merited. He ducked his head through the strap on his bow to allow it to hang down his back while he went for the hatchet tucked through the back of his belt. They separated again to approach the figure from both sides.

"You needn't have bothered," Hershel spoke into the quiet without raising his head. "Maggie would have understood. With time."

The words told them that the man had not been bitten.

Yet.

_And wasn't that word just the bitch of it all?_

Sensing a conversation he had no interest in, Daryl locked eyes with Rick and communicated with a jerk of his head that he'd keep watch out front while these two talked. The Deputy accepted with a quick nod, moving to slide on to the pew and sit with the other man.

It wasn't long after taking up position in the shadows of the foyer that the clop of hooves reached his ears. They were bringing the animals in slow, but it was still more noise that Daryl liked having made.

He didn't question Glenn or Maggie for their arrival outside the area they'd been assigned. The girl was smart. It was likely just the upset at having found her father missing in his current state of mind that had kept her from immediately guessing he'd seek sanctuary in a place like this.

She slid from the horse and tossed him the reins after he met her questioning gaze with a nod to confirm her dad was indeed inside. He caught them instinctively; grabbing Glenn's when the kid followed his girlfriend without thinking about the horse he abandoned. Daryl hobbled both animals then began a quick sweep of the area to see how much trouble had stirred up.

His boots tread lightly over gravel and pavement as he rounded the corner of the church, crossbow back at ready in his steady hands.

Two of the bastards were almost upon him when he cleared the structure, demanding a quick firing of the arrow cocked and loaded on the tiller. He pulled a second bolt from the quiver and drove it into the skull of the second zombie with his bare hand.

Cursing in his head at having been surprised in that fashion, he retrieved the arrows and wiped them on his pants with only the slightest tremor in his hands. He could hear voices rising and falling inside the structure and wanted to curse aloud at their choosing to carry out their drama in a fucking hot zone.

Rolling his eyes at the lot of them, he replaced the bolt in the quiver and reloaded quickly to continue his circuit around the church. When he rounded the corner to return to the entrance in front, the street was decidedly less empty than he'd left it.

Seeing no reason to try avoiding detection now, he let his profanity fly and dashed up the steps into the building.

"There's no hope for any of us," Hershel was saying at the time of his entrance and Daryl considered shooting the ass.

"I agree if we stay here, but outside of that, speak for yourself, old man."

Daryl contemptuous snort drew all their eyes to him, Glenn and Rick both tensing with the instinctive knowledge of what had sent the hunter rushing in.

"How many?" Rick asked, pulling out the Python and checking the rounds in its chamber as he moved to the doors.

"I look like a Census taker to you?"

Heat, hunger and imminent doom would make anyone a bit testy.

Maggie began trying to pull her father out, but he pushed her off.

"I've made my peace. My time…_our_ time on this Earth is clearly done. Let us be at peace with that."

"There's nothing peaceful about the way this happens! We have to go now," Maggie argued, firm, but with the eternal entreaty of a child to their parent.

Not about to allow all their lives to be lost in the fuss, but knowing the others wouldn't move without the man, Daryl quickly shifted his grip on the bow and darted across the floor until he slammed the stock against Hershel's head to knock the man unconscious. Maggie and he both moved to catch the slumping body and the girl's eyes promised retribution.

"Yeah," he cut her off when her mouth opened to tear into him for the violent action, "you can thank me later."

He gladly turned his half of the burden over to Glenn and moved to rush them all to the entrance. Rick's gaze met his with a worry that knotted Daryl gut and had him gritting his teeth against more curses.

The street was filling, but the horses were untouched and they had just enough space to make a run for it from the staggering herd. Not giving a damn about women's lib or hurt feelings, he shouldered Maggie aside to grab Hershel and drag the unconscious body down the steps to throw it up over the closest saddle with Glenn's help.

The girl didn't need a diagram drawn, pushing Daryl aside to climb quickly up behind her father and making sure he was situated securely. He was surprised she waited for Glenn to get on the other horse before taking off, antsy as she was all of a sudden to get gone.

As soon as the boy had his reins in hand, she slapped her palm to the horse's ass to send it bolting then slapped the reins sharply across the neck of her own mount to send it galloping after.

"Head east half a mile then cross the river. You can lose them in the water," she called out with a glance back to them and the zombies soon to be nipping at their heels.

They took off away from the gathering crowd, keeping her instructions in mind.

The way was clearer, but not exactly clear and by Daryl's count they had nine shots to keep the Walker's at a distance, his three arrows and the six bullets in Rick's Colt.

As he fired his first arrow to take out an ugly old schoolmarm type missing an eye and half her face, he hoped they still had nine lives left between the two of them.

* * *

><p>I know, no Carol? No Caryl moments? Remember fangirls, this is Daryl's story. He'd gonna need his guts and gory. Plus, I've been wanting to do a bit more dialog for him and this scene suited me. :P<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

"Next time," Daryl panted, doubling over from the burning pain in his side, "we take a fucking car."

"Don't tell me Daryl damned Dixon can't take a little jog," Rick joked, holding his own sides as his chest heaved to draw in enough breath to recover from the running they'd been doing.

Daryl considered punching the guy for the taunt, just on principal, but it was nice to have someone joke with him rather than try to make a joke of him.

His thoughts went back to Jimbo and the camaraderie they had shared in camp, comparing notes and jokes about life in a garage, both being mechanics with Daryl focused on motorcycles and Jim diesel engines. He hated even more now, after having seen Sophia, to think of his almost friend wandering the woods they had left him in, seeking flesh to consume.

_The pickaxe would have been kinder_, Daryl still thought, but had gone along with letting the man make his own choice.

So he let it go with a crude gesture, both the jibe and unsettling memory, then reached for the second bottle of water he'd packed and tried not to grimace at how his wound troubled him.

"How much further, you think?" Rick panted, following Daryl's example and gulping down water.

Daryl had been running the numbers himself for the last mile or so while they kept their punishing pace through the river and clear of the Walker's shambling along after them. Their trek through the woods into down had been a good five miles, taken at a leisurely pace. Maggie's direction had taken them another half mile east of the farm and he had taken them a little to the north to hopefully keep any of the better predators from catching their trail back to the base, so to his thinking, they had another two miles of dirt road to manage.

"Fuck," Rick braced his hands on his knees and dropped his head forward when Daryl shared his calculation.

"Oh ho ho, so Rick fucking Grimes can't handle a bit of a hike now?"

The guy glared at him with a begrudging grin before returning the finger Daryl had given him moments before for a similar sneer.

Recovered as much as he would get under the circumstances, Daryl recapped his bottle and put it back away. He pulled the rag from his pocket to wipe his face, still wet with sweat and the water dripping from his hair from their dip in the river. Rick took the cloth gratefully when Daryl extended it and scrubbed the moisture from his own face before giving it back.

They set off again at a walk, weapons handy, but no longer at ready for immediate danger. Not that the single arrow Daryl had left or Rick's last two rounds would be that much good.

The sun was edging toward the horizon, but Daryl was certain they'd reach camp before it set. It was beginning to cool, which was a blessing, the coming night bringing a nice breeze to help their overheated bodies.

_Damned pretty time and place for a stroll_, he thought, enjoying the open area around the road that allowed them a clear view of their safe passage.

"You ever wonder if he was right?"

_So much for peaceful,_ Daryl cursed the other man's need for conversation and kicked himself for forgetting that trait.

"If you doubt our chances of survival so much, why the hell'd you even get us out of the CDC?" he asked, turning on the other man with a glare.

"Not that," Rick corrected Daryl. "Not what he said in the church. The Walkers. You ever wonder if they could have been cured?"

"Hell." Daryl huffed in disgust at the notion and turned back to the road ahead.

They walked along in silence for a bit after that, Rick seeming to know further talk on that topic wouldn't be welcomed.

"Ones like Jim," Daryl began quietly, giving voice to the thoughts he had had on the matter, "with just a small bite. Maybe. Treat it like rabies or something. But these things…he was lucky to have gotten chewed as little as he did. The way they tear into ya…devour…I don't abide with how Shane made his point, but he had one. The Walkers aren't living any longer. The people inside are long dead and gone. Soul's moved on. Ain't no fixin' that."

Dead silence met his stumbling little speech and he glanced back at the man that had lagged behind when he began to speak.

Rick met his gaze with a look that asked for the words to be sincere, needing that absolution. Daryl didn't see how he was suited to cleanse any conscious, but he knew the point needed made for them both.

"Couldn't have saved her. That bite tore out veins, bled her to death," Daryl gulped down the knot in his gut at the memory. "Weren't anything left to save of that little girl."

The words were quiet enough Daryl wondered if he even spoke them outside his head, but he knew from the way Rick's hand gripped his shoulder in consolation and support that the message had gotten out. The Deputy took the lead then, putting them both back in motion toward the farm after Daryl took a minute to swipe at the moisture on his face again, not conceding for a moment that a single tear could be among the sweat and river water he wiped away.

Glenn showed up in the Cherokee before too long, a sight that almost had both men collapsing to their knees in gratitude. Instead, they manned up and climbed into the car without a word, sitting up straight and tall in the seats instead of slumping back against the surface in exhaustion.

The kid started jabbering about the old man and Maggie as soon as they settled, but Daryl blocked it out. Rick, he knew, would go straight to the main house to try talking more with Hershel to plea their case, but Daryl just wanted the isolation of his tent.

Lori rushed the Jeep as soon as it came to a stop, all but dragging Rick from the passenger seat to hug then harangue him. All things considered, Daryl thought that to be a rather encouraging reaction from a wife.

Carol stumbled a few steps toward the car as Daryl pushed himself out and instinctively sought her location in the group. Her lower lip was bitten between her teeth, worried and uncertain, as she hugged herself. Their gazes locked and he read her want and confusion and doubt, but knew of no damned way to soothe any of it.

More tired from that than the tracking and run for his life, he gripped the strap on his shoulder and turned from those eyes to seek the shelter of his tent. Her gaze followed him into the structure and he felt them burning through the canvas long after he'd zipped himself inside.


	5. Chapter 5

Daryl had smelled the meal cooking, but hadn't been tempted to seek food despite the grumble of his stomach.

He never would have expected her to bring it to him anyway, with the way things had changed between them. The thought hadn't even passed hopefully through his mind, so to say she surprised him was an understatement.

"Daryl," she called softly to him at the same time she began to unzip the tent flap.

His hands froze in their inspection of the assorted arrows he'd collected along the way, checking them over for the best ones to replace the two that had been left behind in town.

Knowing she hadn't been asking for an invitation, simply announcing her intention to enter, his eyes darted quickly around the interior. It was a mess from his sorting and evaluation of bolts, but there was nothing overly incriminating in plain view. While he might not be bothered by the side-effects of sweat and dirt on his skin from working the land, he tried to be neat in the keeping of his living environment.

Organization could be key to survival, when he sometimes had no option but to reach blindly for a weapon or if he had to grab his gear to get moving quickly and without advance warning. That kind of preparation and forethought had gotten him this far and he didn't see it changing any time soon.

He swept the arrows up and bundled them to the backside of the shelter as she ducked inside, plate extended toward him. The steak and potatoes were even more surprising and his gut immediately thanked her for bringing it to his stubborn ass with an audible grumble.

"Maggie was feeling a little generous," Carol explained unnecessarily as he grabbed the plate from her.

He responded with a disinterested grunt as he picked the meat up with his bare hand and tore in to the meat, finding the outside crisp and the inside just shy of oozing blood. A groan of pure, unadulterated pleasure escaped him as he wondered who and how they'd known he would take his steak.

His jaw stopped moving in mid-chew as it sank in that she was settling down beside him with a plate of her own being placed on her Indian-style crossed legs. Seeing the satisfied look on her face, not a smile or anything obvious, just a softness that told him she had instructed the preparation of his portion, Daryl gulped down the chunk of meat that he'd been working on.

It went down painfully and he thumped his chest as it seemed to lodge there, earning a wide-eyed stare from his uninvited guest. Her hands paused in the process of cutting her own food up into dainty, bite-sized pieces of well-done steak and she looked on the verge of calling for someone to come perform the Heimlich maneuver on him when he grabbed for a bottle of water and swallowed the mass down without killing himself.

Eyes watering slightly, he cleared the obstacle fully from his throat, rubbed his hand on his pants then reached for the knife and fork she had provided him to eat his meal in a more civilized manner.

She looked to want to say something, but he made a point of keeping his mouth full and his eyes averted, watching her closely in the peripheral of his vision.

His tongue wasn't without a few questions tingling on the tip to be asked, but that tended to lead to answers and answers could be very very bad things.

"Glenn says it was bad," she ventured as the food on their plates dwindled down.

He forced himself not to pause as he speared a chunk of meat and potato on his fork to shove into his mouth, filling it until his cheeks bulged. Her eyes were demanding he meet them, but he refused, gazing resolutely at the remaining bites on his plate.

His chomping slowed once more as she shifted to her knees to scrape the last of her own meal on to his plate before she moved to plate her dirty dishes outside the tent. She settled back in the place she had chosen, drawing her knees up under her chin this time and hugging them while she stared at him.

How she expected him to finish with her just gawping at him, he had no damned idea, but between the hunger in his gut and the need for his hands to be anything but idle, he managed the feat without complaint at the slight toughness of her donated steak. He was tempted to lick the plate once it was emptied, having run out of anything else to occupy himself, but she thwarted that by moving to extend her hand in request of the dishes.

He surrendered them slowly, wiping his hands again on his pants as she placed the items atop her own outside the tent.

Then she zipped the entrance closed and turned to face him, resolution in every inch of her posture and nuance of her expression.

"It hasn't changed anything," she said softly into the tense silence.

He frowned at her, not really getting the point of the words.

"I still can't lose you. If anything it's worse now. I don't understand it...," she looked away with a frown, beginning to fidget under his curious and intent gaze. "It's your own fault."

He knew the accusation to be true and scratched at the back of his neck before finding a hangnail to bite at.

"Did you really have nothing better to do than make me fall in love with you?"

"I…" he choked out, mind seizing at that particular word.

"You can't not have known it would happen," she huffed in disbelief, turning tearful eyes to study the walls of the tent. "No one's ever done a kindness for me without expecting some kind of repayment, but you did. You went looking for my little girl without anyone asking and you made me _see _you. Brought me a flower, first anyone's ever given me, and you made me _feel _ for you. You …kissed me in that barn today and made me **_want_ **you."

Her eyes met his as she confessed this to him and he wanted to look away, but her open gaze was a snare part of him was glad to be caught in.

"I close my eyes and see either her or you and I don't know which makes me question sanity more."

She moved then, striking like a cobra that had hypnotized him with its dance before taking the kill shot. Her hand shook as it skimmed over along his arm before finding the brace of his shoulder as she leant over his knees, which he had drawn up in a defensive posture after finishing his meal.

His head tipped back, unbidden, to help her mouth find his and her lips were dry and hard against him. Her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips and slid moisture across his as well, causing his body to clench while he fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her. She kept at him, tongue moving to try prying his mouth open, but no matter how his body wanted to take hers, he kept hearing her confession over and over in his mind.

He hadn't thought this through.

As with everything else, he'd just been going on some kind of instinct, never thinking of a consequence like this.

No one had ever said they loved him in his whole miserable life. Or even implied it, since he wasn't sure she had even really said it just now.

With Merle it had probably been more family loyalty and blood ties than anything considered love. They sure as hell had never said that particular word in any serious fashion when sober. Drunk or high, there'd been times they loved everyone and everything they encountered, but there'd never been any kind of tender exchange like in the damned movies where they talked about their damned feelings or some shit. He hadn't even gotten the blood tie vibe from his father, who'd enjoyed beating Daryl like a redheaded step-child so often that Daryl had naturally questioned his parentage.

With women in his past, it'd never gone past a night or two for either of them to feel more than the itch they'd scratched together. His mom hadn't been in his life long enough for him to have a memory of her, loving or not.

Daryl didn't know what the hell to do with this and could only picture the damage of Andrea loving Amy and losing her sister like that. The way Shane obsessed over Lori when he thought no one saw, but Daryl saw it and remembered how those two had been before Rick found his family again.

Hell, the shit Rick alone had gone through and continued to suffer in the name or thought of "love" was enough to give any reasonable person pause.

Then there was the memory of Carol breaking apart in his arms when Sophia came out of that barn.

_What if he wasn't there to catch or hold her the next time?_

_What if she was the one to come staggering at them?_

She fell back from him at his lack of a response; eyes seeking his as her fingers lightly touched his cheek before dropping away.

He honestly had no idea what he showed in his gaze, but she read something there and it saddened her visibly in the moment before she dropped her head forward to gulp down a swallow.

He watched quietly as she turned from him to unzip the tent and move carefully from the shelter. She stooped to retrieve their dishes before walking away from him without a backward glance.

His feet itched with the want to run after her and he licked his lips to take in the lingering taste of her, but his body made no other move as his eyes followed her until she moved from his sight.

_How the hell was he supposed to love a woman now when he'd never known how to do it in a world that had supposedly had a future for any of them?_

The question burned in his brain, obliterating all other thought as he continued to just sit there in the growing darkness until the draft of cool night air moved him to close the flap.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I had originally had a reference to this 'clip' from the promo in Chapter 2, but I edited that out because I'm liking the idea of this being more about Daryl's growing relationships with everyone rather than keeping the focus pinned down on Caryl. I was drawn to the idea of this scene and let my muses run with it.

* * *

><p>Daryl woke later than usual and found the camp in as much upheaval as he'd been throughout the night.<p>

He grabbed the last of the powered egg breakfast and quietly watched Glenn pace, staring up at the farm house and wringing his cap in his hands.

From what Daryl could gather of the quiet conversations and apprehensive air among the group, they would be pulling up stakes shortly. Some of them, T-Dog, Carol and Andrea appeared to be starting already.

He tracked her movements as she took down the rope that had served as their clothesline, but she didn't pause under the weight of his stare. She kept her head purposefully averted when she dropped the looped twine to the growing pile of their junk and moved on to the next task she set for herself.

It wasn't a cold shoulder, she seemed set on pretending like he didn't even exist and he couldn't say he blamed her.

Glenn paced through his line a sight, providing a welcome distraction from Daryl's thoughts on how he'd fucked it all up at her confession the night before.

When the kid plunked himself down on the camping chair beside him, Daryl turned his gaze that way. The nervous energy in the Asian would have been obvious even without the way his knees kept bouncing and his hands kept jamming his cap on then tearing it right back off to allow his fingers to run through his inky black hair.

Daryl didn't have to ask to know what was tearing the guy up.

There was more to be lost here for Glenn than for any of them. Whatever was being debated by their hosts up at the big house, it would affect this young man more than anyone.

"It's just sex, right?" Glenn asked, turning toward him to leave Daryl without a doubt that the question was being asked of him. "We've only been here two weeks. People don't fall in love that quickly."

Daryl finished the last of his cold, congealed breakfast with it sinking like a stone in his stomach. Glenn didn't give him a chance to formulate any kind of response, but Daryl supposed the kid wasn't looking for it.

"She won't leave," Glenn's shoulders slouched forward and his feet stopped their jittery bouncing. The stillness was more unsettling than the anxious pacing. "We talked about it last night. Says she can't leave them. They need her. I get that," his fingers speared and tangled in his dark hair as the kid wrestled with his thoughts. "She's strong. A protector. These people are her family. I can't expect her to leave them here after all they've been through."

The soft words tore at Daryl and that defeated posture looked a little too familiar for his comfort. Daryl unconsciously raised a hand to smooth over his own hair, wondering if it was still mussed from how he'd tangled his fingers in it so frequently in the night. His eyes sought out Carol again, finding her with Andrea as the pair worked to dismantle the Grimes' tent.

He sensed Glenn turning to watch the largest of their shelters fall once the supports were removed. Both men tensed a bit at the sight, knowing what it meant for their group.

"I can't stay. She can't expect me to stay, right?" Glenn asked, clearly thinking aloud as they both kept watch of the women moving to fold the collapsed canvas. "You guys…this is as close as I have to family anymore."

The simple truth of that hovered between them and the young man fell silent after airing that particular bit of knowledge.

They were an odd bunch of orphans, thrown together by the fates.

Daryl's gaze moved from the women who'd completed their task and moved efficiently on to the next tent in their circle.

He took in the dejected figure beside him then moved on to T-Dog doing the heavy lifting of various items from the pile on the ground to the top of the RV to be strapped down, out of the way there, for this next stage of their journey.

Rick and Carl were nowhere to be seen, but Daryl could imagine the Deputy most likely keeping an anxious guard at the house and his son probably tagging along as they waited for the official expulsion from this place.

His eyes narrowed slightly as they touched on Dale and Lori, standing together and staring worriedly toward the road while the older man spoke quietly to the woman. Daryl followed their focus to Shane, messing in the back of his new ride.

Something was off in that picture.

With another glance at Glenn, Daryl rose from his seat, resisting an urge to pat the guy's back or something in consolation. He turned without making any such gestures, though, and left the young man to his thoughts.

Glenn gave no reaction to his leaving, but Daryl was used to passing unnoticed while things - people, animals, the undead – were distracted. It was both a blessing and curse, given the way of the world now.

As he crossed the ground to Shane's Hyundai, Dale caught his eye and Daryl frowned at the look in the old man's eyes as they seemed to warn Daryl to proceed with caution.

He shook off the warning with a huff and roll of his eyes, growing tired of the group's tip-toeing around the elephant in the room.

Shane was still when Daryl walked up on him, shaven head bent forward as his dark eyes surveyed the contents in the back of the vehicle. A muscle ticked in the man's cheek, telling of the violent place his head was still at.

If that anger and energy could have been rerouted, Daryl imagined the group would have a pretty good shot, but even before the barn scene, he had begun to sense that the cop was pretty much done channeling any energy toward civility.

With the exception of Dale's Hawkeye and Rick's Python, every gun from the group laid spread out on an Army blanket before him and Daryl knew then why Lori and the old man had been watching Shane so anxiously. Andrea had even surrendered her Ladysmith to the collection.

Shane didn't protest any when Daryl shouldered in closer and bent to pick up the Remington. He'd not touched the damned thing since dropping in the dirt to grab Carol and he didn't much care for the weight of it back in his hands.

Guns had always been more Merle's thing.

Gramps had taught them to hunt with any and every weapon imaginable, even how to make up a few as they went, and Daryl had always preferred the lighter, stealthier tools like his bow or a knife. They'd always seemed more precise and efficient in how they killed. Less mess than the splatter of a bullet tearing through the meat and muscle of the animal he intended to eat. The quiet of such weapons was an added bonus, keeping other game from bolting so that Daryl had always had the chance at an abundant hunt.

All of those traits were even more desirable in the situation he found himself in now with a world overrun by Walkers.

Putting those thoughts aside, he gave the shotgun a quick pump to insure the action was still as it should be, shouldering the empty weapon to gaze down the site and make sure he hadn't thrown it off any with the way he'd cast it to the ground.

"Cleaned them all well enough," Shane said, leaning back against the open hatch of the car. "Ammo's the problem. We should have just burned the thing sooner, with those things inside."

"Lotta things we probably should've done different that day," Daryl mused softly, with a speaking glance the other man failed to feel or simply refused to acknowledge. He put the shotgun back down, seeing the drastically reduced number of bullets and shells on the blanket. "We'll have to stock up next town we get to. Maggie'll tell us where we can find some more."

"Now that's some bullshit right there," Shane said, stiffening up and rubbing at the back of his neck in agitation. "There's no reason for us to be leaving here."

"Awful funny coming from the guy who's been chomping at the bit to get gone from here since the kid got patched up," Daryl scoffed, eyes narrowing as he watched the other man.

"Things have changed. Walkers are gone. We got a good stronghold here."

"'Cept it ain't ours."

"We can change that," Shane moved in to bend his head toward him and speak more quietly. "It's just the five of them, man. Pitchforks and words are all they've got. There's ten of us, we've got the guns here."

"What exactly are you saying?" Daryl wasn't surprised by the thinking the other man had done, any more than he was shocked to have Shane trying to get his cooperation.

"I'm saying they'll get used to it. Get used to us. We just have to assert our position. Got a right to stay."

"But no reason," he argued, turning away with a disgusted shake of his head.

"Look, man," Shane stopped him with a rough hand on his right arm and Daryl went for his knife with his left hand. Shane let him go as soon as he saw the weapon unsheathed, putting his hands up and stepping back in a motion meant to ease some of the tension. "Look," the man pressed on quietly, after a glance around found them gathering an audience, "all I'm saying is that we can hold this ground. Hershel's kept it up well. We've got food here, water and shelter. Enough to last us until…"

Daryl easily filled the space Shane's trailing words left. He knew that Rick had had the same motivation when he argued so hard for their staying.

_Lori._

The way would be rough with her growing heavy with child and once the kid popped out, they'd likely be in for a world of hurt given that Daryl had never encountered a baby that wasn't prone to squalling. All their lives would be endangered further by that unless and until they found a stronghold.

"That's not the way," Daryl said, looking pointedly at the guns.

"It's the only way," Shane argued, puffing up at having his idea rejected. "We've gotta think of the group. Protecting our own."

"Other ways to do it," Daryl turned his back on the man again.

"Like what? You got any bright ideas?"

Not about to be baited by the man, Daryl began to walk away.

"What do you do to keep this camp safe?" Shane challenged, storming after him. "Huh? What do _you_ do?"

"Don't you tell me I ain't been gettin' my hands dirty," Daryl swung back, knife rising to push the man back. "I do what has to be done. What _has _to be done. You wanna take this place with force, hold that family hostage after all you've done, you're on your own and don't be saying you're doing it for this group."

Shane had no words to counter the rare speech and reacted with force, knocking the knife aside and putting his shoulder in Daryl's midsection.

Having taken a similar hit before, Daryl knew not to try overtaking the man and finding himself in another chokehold. He fell back under the other man's weight instead, grabbing Shane's tee shirt and yanking it up as they hit the dirt. He'd watched enough hockey to see how the maneuver worked, pulling the material over his opponent's head and using the momentary distraction to get in a few body blows.

The cop's gut was as rock hard as he'd wanted it to look, but Daryl still hit at it, aiming for a kidney until Shane freed an arm from the tangle of his shirt and brought an elbow down on Daryl's chest.

Winded, but far from down, Daryl grabbed that elbow and yanked as hard as he could manage, twisting the other man off balance just enough to push out from under him. Shane took the moment to tear off his shirt completely before reaching to snag the waist of Daryl's pants to pull him back.

Instinctively, he kicked backward at the hold, feeling his heel connect soundly with flesh and grinning at the pained grunt from the other man. He flipped over to his back in time to see Shane spit blood then jumped to his feet just as the other man did.

They circled one another, sizing up the opposition and paying no attention to the group calling out for them to stop.

Daryl kept his fists up, but elbows low, anticipating another attack against his vulnerable midsection.

Shane kept his fists and elbows up, knowing his face to be the most likely target for Daryl's blows.

When they finally moved it was to prove each other wrong in their assumptions. Shane's fist plowed into his cheek like a fucking brick while Daryl lashed out with a kick to the other man's side that Merle would have hooted with laughter over.

He spit some blood of his own while Shane bounced back on the balls of his feet, grinning at the lack of effect that the kick had had on him.

"You think you've got a chance against me, you dumb hick? I crap pieces of shit tougher than you'll ever be."

Used to a higher standard, or lower depending on one's outlook, of insults from his brother, Daryl didn't flinch at the taunt and saw the next punch coming in time to spin away from it and bring a hard elbow up to meet Shane's face when the man leaned forward with the follow-through of the swing.

The crunch and snap of cartilage was satisfactory for only a moment before the man roared around at the impact and lunged for retaliation.

Daryl felt a rib snap under the blunt force of the shoulder Shane drove into it, hitting him like a bull in full rage. The bastard caught him on his wounded side, tearing at the stitches that would have been removed in another day or so and hurting like the worst motherfucker.

He hadn't a chance after that, badass as he'd like to be. Shane took him all the way to the ground then straddled his prone body to begin pounding on it and all Daryl could do was block some of the blows to his face.

It took both T-Dog's tackle and Rick's return to get the bastard off of him.

What happened after that he wasn't all together certain with his loss of consciousness.

* * *

><p>AN 2: I've watched the promo over and over and still have no idea exactly what it is that Daryl said to Shane in the clip, but I know I didn't get it exactly right so if anyone knows is actual words please let me know. And, I know, the Shane bit is getting old. Thanks for bearing with me though and we're moving past it now and back to Carol.


	7. Chapter 7

He came to at a cool, wet cloth pressing against his side.

The touch, gentle as it was, still made Daryl flinch to awareness. His eyes, only slightly swollen, flew open to find Carol at his side, tending him with a distracted frown on her face.

He was lying on the bed in the back of the RV.

They were both jostled by something the vehicle hit, a pothole or rut, and Daryl sat up with a curse upon realizing that they were leaving the farm.

The movement tweaked his aching ribs, earning another curse as he put his hand to the new injury. His words had a slur to then and he flexed his jaw, trying to gauge if it was actually broken, dislocated or simply swollen from Shane's blows. It opened and closed easily enough, so he deemed it the swelling and wondered how bad he looked.

Bad enough, judging from Carol's expression as she put a hand to his shoulder, her concern evident as she urged him to lie back down. He obeyed without any thought other than the realization that his shirt was gone and her hand was hot on his bare skin.

Sore as it was, his damned body wanted more of her touch. Her fingers moved so delicately over his injuries, seeming to want to soothe and heal him with a simple caress. If any touch could perform such miracles, he was sure it was hers, which made it all the more dangerous.

He shifted away from her, pressing against the wall of the Winnebago to put as much space between them as possible and not caring how cowardly the move was. It was the perversity of man to relish the blow of fists and be wary of a woman's touch. Daryl was sure he wasn't the only one to be a little skittish in such circumstances.

"Your ribs seem to be the worst of it," she spoke softly, her hand slowly dropping at his retreat. "We would have bound them, but don't have the supplies."

"'s alright," he said, his voice catching and he cleared his throat. "Most docs don't even bother with that anymore anyway."

She nodded, still looking regretful and guilty, like it was somehow her fault or responsibility that he was hurt.

"How long was I out?" he could still see daylight outside the windows, but couldn't gauge the direction they travelled to place the exact position of the sun.

"Longer than you've probably let yourself sleep since this began," she chided, putting the washcloth in the bucket nearby.

"The bike?" he asked, anticipating the answer and apologizing to Merle's ghost for losing the motorcycle.

She frowned at him, clearly not understanding how the machine could matter to him and Daryl hoped to never have to explain that.

"Glenn needed some space," she surprised him by saying. "No one thought you'd mind if he rode it, so long as it wasn't left behind."

"Hell, he even know what the hell he's doing?" Daryl scoffed to cover his suprise and relief.

The surprise was, mostly, that anyone had bothered to think of the machine with him out cold, but also at his relief to hear that Glenn was still part of the group. He'd had doubts that he'd never voice as to which direction the kid's heart would take Glenn. Daryl didn't want to lose any more of their group, dyfunctional as it may be.

"I would say he can manage," she began moving around, collecting items and seeming unable to just sit with him in the cramped space. "He said he's licensed for it. To hear him tell it, he used to have one of those fast ones. Something foreign sounding. A cowabunga?"

Despite it all, that startled a laugh from Daryl and once he started, it was hard to stop. It hurt like a bitch with his side and face aching as they were, but he'd not felt genuine amusement for longer than he could remember and the pleasure at that outweighed the twinges of physical pain.

She looked slightly hurt by his laughing at her, but he didn't apologize. He couldn't explain how precious she was to him in that instant, how rare the moment was.

"A Kawasaki," he corrected once his amusement had run its course. "Kawasaki's a motorcycle. Cowabunga's some line from a cartoon."

"Oh," she blushed at her error and sat back in her chair, folding his shirt in her lap to keep her hands occupied.

He was grateful for Shane's beating just then. If his face weren't hurting to the roots of his teeth, he would have kissed her. If his body could have taken it, he would have pulled her atop him and given her something else to blush about.

As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, her hands stilled and she looked into his eyes, catching the thoughts there before he could conceal them. They both froze at the connection, electricity filling the air between them.

He saw the pulse jump in her throat before her hand fluttered up to cover the telltale reaction.

His wanting her wasn't in question. He'd made it clear to her in the barn, before he'd reined in his lust. There was more to it than that for her, though. She needed more out of it and the burden of that kept him hunched back against the wall until she dropped her gaze.

Her disappointment was a harder blow than Shane's fists and he berated himself for a coward as she rose to quietly leave him to wrestle with his head again.

Twice now, he had failed her on this and he didn't want to think about what may happen with a third time.

She returned briefly with a bottle of water and two aspirins, but didn't linger to even watch him swallow the pills.

The slump of her shoulders as she left him hurt in different ways than his collection of bruises. He hadn't seen her so dejected since she'd taken the pickaxe from him to obliterate Ed Peletier's head at the quarry. Not even when Sophia ran off.

Purpose and resolution had carried her since the moment her abusive spouse was buried. A core of strength had been hinted at in the weeks since then and Daryl had been drawn to that more than anything about her.

With Sophia gone, though, and his refusal to be coddled, she seemed at a loss and he hated to cast her adrift.

He hated even more to see that an action of his had put her back in that beaten posture.

She deserved better than scraps, though.

Better than her husband had given her.

Better than Daryl had to offer.

All he knew to do was protect her. Watch over and for her.

He didn't know if it was caring, but he wanted to do it.

He wanted the peace back that he had found with her at that pond where the Cherokee Rose grew.

He wanted to be able to talk to her, quiet and soft again, as they had been able to before the barn. The quiet of her nature drew words from places within him that he hadn't even known he had and telling her junk, no matter how stupid, had eased something in him.

He wanted it to be alright for her to tend to him. To touch and coddle him with that glow in her eyes that twisted his guts.

He wanted to be worthy of something more than he'd ever known, but he kept fucking it up.

Through the doorway, he could see her sitting at the kitchen table, head bent over some task. As he watched, her right hand moved outward, pulling the taut the thread he imagined attached to the needle he saw in her clasp. His shirt was gone and he knew she was mending it, as she had gradually done to his whole wardrobe.

He wondered if that was all love was. If it could be as simple as her seeing something simple like that, something of his that needed tending to and her choosing to be the one to tend to it.

He could manage that, with and for her, if love was that simple.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating given how prolific I had been. The ideas are all still there, I've just been unfaithful to the writing since someone turned my on to Tumblr. The Norman Reedus goodness on that sight is addicting and I've been pic spamming and all other manner of distractions. I'll cut back, though, I swear. Got all these wonderful new ideas to get out thanks to Alamo Girl and some of the worlds greatest spoilers for the upcoming episodes!

On an additional note, it's late for me and I've been trying to get too many things done at once and I got this out and am posting it with only a quick skim after the fact, so please PM me with typos/errors/WTF...did you mean to say? issues that you notice. Thanks, as always. :)

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><p>The Winnebago had been stopped for quite some time, but Daryl felt no urge to wander from the bed.<p>

It wasn't that he was too beat up to leave the RV. He'd had worse and still been expected to do his chores without so much as a wince at the broken bone he'd been working with. Their dad had never been a sympathetic sort, especially when he was the one to have broken the bone to begin with.

Daryl remembered a time from when he was about ten. His dad had lit into him about something and fool that Daryl had been at that age, he'd put up an arm to block a blow to the ribs and his father's fist had plowed full speed into his wrist. Both then and now, Daryl found it hard to believe a punch could have broken the bone, but the hand had troubled him for days, required extra care on any task he performed, until his teacher had noticed the swelling and sent him to the nurse who sent him to the hospital where there told him it was fractured then put him in a damned cast for four weeks.

It hadn't gotten him any kind of reprieve from the abuse.

So he knew he could have gone out when they'd stopped and been more than a little helpful in setting up camp wherever it was they had stopped. He could have scouted the surrounding terrain for Walkers and potential weaknesses in the perimeter where Walkers could get to them, as well as bringing in some game for dinner if there was any in the area.

He hadn't been asked, though, so, for a change, he didn't volunteer.

The idleness was a bit wearing and he wished for his gear to fiddle with, but he had no idea where it might be packed away.

Alone in the camper, he decided then was as good a time as any to look and sat up to shuffle to the edge of the bed.

His side was a bit tight and stiff, but definitely manageable. He sat there for a few minutes, experimenting with bending, twisting and raising his arms to get a feel for what hurt most.

It all drew about the same level of curses and wincing.

He rose to stand on bare feet next to his boots, set neatly at the bottom corner of the bed for him to get in to if needed, and he wondered if she had taken them off of him. He liked the idea of her tending like that, but doubted it.

She had probably set them there, but it was likely one of the guys who had taken off his shirt and shoes once they had put him in the bed.

With a hand automatically curled over his aching ribs, he scanned the room to see if she had been as thoughtfully organized with his things. He didn't see either the black leather saddle bags from the Triumph or his worn green rucksack, though.

He'd shuffled as far as the doorway to the kitchen area when the door to the RV opened and he froze guiltily as Carol came into view.

His head whipped toward the bed, gauging if he could make it back before she caught him up. The Merle that seemed eternally in his head now cackled at that impulse, reminding Daryl that he had a pair.

As she climbed inside, he dropped the hand from his side, pulled his shoulders back and thrust out his chest, jaw cocking outward in waiting challenge for her to chide him.

The posture was wasted on her, deflating him somewhat.

She gave him a passing glance before turning to the cupboards to begin pulling down dishes.

Without a word said to chastise him or any obvious show of concern for his welfare, he had to look for some indication she still gave a damn. She drew the corner of her lower lip into her mouth and gnawed on it as she worked, head bowed and eyes focused determinedly on her task. Daryl took those little things as the sign that she wasn't unaffected by his being up when she likely thought he should stay at rest.

Once she had assembled plates, silverware and serving utensils in a neat stack, she gathered the collection to her chest and turned to leave.

"Supper will be ready soon," she paused on the threshold to say softly, head turning toward him, but eyes making no effort to acutally seek him. "Since you're up, did you want to-"

"Just had to hit the head," he lied smoothly and slid into the bathroom, escaping her timidity before he overreacted to it.

He heard the Winnebago's door click closed behind her as he closed the curtain that had been hung for privacy after the folding doors to the bathroom had been trashed by the Walker that attacked Andrea.

He avoided his reflection in the mirror until after he'd relieved himself.

As he flushed, he thought he heard a noise outside the curtain, but his hackles didn't rise so he disregarded it.

The first look at the damage showed it to be little more than bruises and a busted lip. His nose was unbroken, all his teeth still intact. His cheeks and eyes were puffy, but not overly swollen. The discoloration of bruising would be an interesting sight for quite a few days as it faded.

He flexed his jaw, making faces at himself in the mirror when he would have preferred to put his fist through the glass.

Tired of his own image, Daryl pushed aside the curtain and stepped back into the open to resume looking for his things, only to stop dead after a single step.

Unbidden, a grin curled the corner of his mouth as his gazed locked on the green sack now laid on the bed.

His eyes darted around, but she hadn't lingered.

That pulled the smile from his lips.

He looked to the door and thought of going after her, but he still had nothing of worth to say to her. He wondered if he ever would.

Glad for the distraction from such thoughts, he moved back to the bed and tore into his things.

Within minutes, he had the bedding covered with arrows, knives and his dwindling supplies.

He gave a passing thought to wonder if they'd passed through any places to replenish their necessities as he picked up a grease rag and settled back against the wall to make sure everything was wiped clean of any gore.

The task went quickly, his hands going through the familiar motions with speed and efficiency. He noticed a bit of something that appeared caught in the spring mechanism of his Buck Rush Sandvik and frowned, trying to remember when it could have come into contact with a Walker, given the shortness of the blade. As he also debated the best way to get the flesh out, the door to the camper opened again and he knew who it was without looking up.

She carried herself more lightly than any of the others and it was effortless for her.

He supposed that was a consequence of her abuse, instinctively moving with as little noise as possible, but it was something useful in their current environment. She'd be a good tracker if she put her mind to it.

Daryl could teach her.

Carol had clearly intended to give him his meal and bolt, quietly stepping into the room to set a plate of food down on the dresser, but he surprised them both by reaching for her rather than the dish.

She jumped visibly, despite the careful and deliberate lightness of his hold on her wrist. Her eyes, as they darted to his hand restraining her, were haunted by something he could only guess at and he let her go as if burned.

For a long moment, she continued to stare at her own skin, as if something still held it and he found himself wanting to ask, but didn't. Finally, her head rose and she looked into his eyes while her other hand rubbed the wrist he had touched.

He saw the question in her eyes while the motion of her hands tugged at his peripheral. His tongue didn't seem to have any words on it, caught as he was by her gaze, so he delayed by licking his lips and breaking eye contact to gather up his collection to clear off the bed.

She mistook the action as a dismissal and made it past the threshold of the room before his brain and mouth agreed on words to speak.

_Did he suggest the tracking lessons he had just thought of offering her?_

_Did he ask her why she seemed to dislike having her wrist held in the way he had unknowingly held it?_

_Did he thank her for the food or her earlier gesture in putting some of his gear out to keep him occupied?_

_Did he give her an apology for all the things he knew he was doing wrong and didn't know how to do right with her?_

"Did you love your husband?"


	9. Chapter 9

"_Did you love your husband?"_

Daryl berated himself as soon as the words fell from his lips, wondering what the hell had caused him to ask such a thing even if it was something he had given some thought to.

He watched Carol grind to a halt, her body jerking visibly as if jolted or physically struck by the question.

_Was that an indication that she **had** loved the bastard, but hated to think about it?_

Daryl figured he'd have to muster out an answer to that on his own as she slowly unfroze her body and resumed her steps to the door, giving him no other sign of having heard the question.

His head dropped to stare at the arrows and knives bundled in his hands and he hurled them across the trailer with a curse as the door clicked shut.

"Tempers are a dangerous thing."

Something kicked in his chest at hearing her soft words.

In disbelief, he raised his eyes to find her moving carefully into the cramped space and stooping to gather up the items.

"You real?" he asked, feeling it to be a valid question given his conversations with Merle.

His words caused her to freeze again, stilling with the collection of bolts and blades cradled against her chest, the last hunting knife clasped in her right hand.

Her eyes went to the blade, staring thoughtfully.

After a moment she rose to deposit the items against her chest on a nearby table, but she kept the knife.

"I wonder sometimes," she mused in answer, softly, as if to herself. "Everything still hurts," she began to turn the knife in her hands, blade to hilt to blade, over and over as he watched with growing apprehension. "That means you're still alive, right? It hurts so much, sometimes…." she bit her lip, cutting off the thought.

Daryl lunged from the bed to take the knife from her when she suddenly closed her fist around the blade.

"Goddamnit," he cursed, grabbing her hands to pry the weapon away without slicing her any more than she had just done to herself.

He flung the knife aside without a care for where it landed, picked a clean red rag from his things and wrapped it hurriedly around her hand, before dragging her to the kitchenette. He felt no pain himself as he moved faster than his battered body cared for, his focus was on her.

He cursed her aloud as a fool woman while he kept pressure on the wound and tried to work up the nerve to peel away the cloth. For a delay, he grabbed a jug of water, popped the lid off then rummaged around with his free hand for some of the medical supplies that should be right fucking _there_ but he couldn't find them.

"Left drawer," she guided him, her voice calm and steady while his fucking heart was beating like it was going to bust out.

He tore the drawer open, not caring that it came out completely with the force of his yank. He stooped to sort through the mess strewn on the floor until he found some alcohol wipes and bandages. He kicked the rest aside to deal with later, dropped the supplies on the counter then pulled her forward until he had her hand over the sink.

Biting his lower lip till the split in it began to bleed, he focused on peeling back the grease rag to inspect the damage, caring only about the blood that had soaked into the cloth and her injury.

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

He didn't expect an answer to the snap, so he didn't care that she offered none as he poured water over the cuts to clear away the blood to see the wounds beneath. That the shit kept welling up as quickly as he rinsed it away wasn't the best of signs.

He was looking toward the door, ready to call for Dale to help or maybe Lori to stitch them up, when Carol decided to speak again.

"He never bothered with the damage," she flexed her fingers and caused more blood to flow when Daryl wanted the damned stuff to stop. "Whatever he broke, it was up to me to fix. I got pretty good with carpentry, thanks to him."

His eyes went from her hand, his mouth opening to tell her to be still when his voice and gaze caught on how she stared at the red drops that fell from her fingertips.

"We had an apartment, starting out, and it used to be enough for him then to put his fist through the wall or break some piece of furniture. I'd put it back together as best I could. Patch up the drywall with plaster. We didn't get that security deposit back."

Her left hand moved between them, going to tend to her own injury, pushing Daryl back and making him realize how he had been hovering over her.

"It got worse when we got our own place," she dabbed at the cuts with the rag and the blood seemed to magically slow at _her_ touch. "I had thought it would be better, but the mortgage and maintenance…he was never happy. But, then, I gues I never really was either, so I can't really blame him in that regard, I guess. I tried, though. God knows, all I ever did was try for that bastard," her hand fisted around the cloth and her jaw flexed with the force of whatever emotion - hurt, anger, bitterness? – that she felt.

"Back then and even still recently, people didn't care," she continued after a quick, bracing inhalation and exhale of breath. "He was lord and master of the house, welcome to rule however he saw fit. I tried to hide it, because that's what you're supposed to do, right? It's what my mother did. She was so good at it that I never even knew my dad was that way until I went to her for help the first time Ed hit me. Their fights had been hard to miss, but I'd only ever heard words. Screams and insults," as she spoke, her fingers probed at the cuts with an expertise that disturbed him. "To hear her tell it, my father was worse than Ed. I doubt it, though, because he never turned to me like that son of a bitch did to Sophia."

Her body froze at that, hand fisting again and face twisting in pain that had nothing to do with her sliced skin.

"They won't need stitches," she sniffed and changed the subject so quickly Daryl felt whiplashed. "Just bind the middle finger a little tighter than the others."

She gathered the swabs and bandages from the counter then moved to sit at the kitchen table, holding her injured hand up toward him in a command that he somehow recognized and obeyed without thought. He slid into the seat opposite of her and carefully took her hand in both of his, pulling it down to the table's surface to get his first real look at the cuts.

He wanted to debate the need for stitching on that middle finger she had mentioned, not liking the cut in the pad at the tip of the finger where he supposed she had gripped the blade hardest. All things considered, she was lucky and he obviously hadn't sharpened that knife recently, because his habit was to keep them all lethal enough to cut through leather.

"She's not the only child I lost."

His fingers froze at the soft words with such a hard blow behind them. He didn't think he wanted to hear more, but sensed he had opened a floodgate and this was an overflow that had to be let out or else the dam within her would burst completely.

He tried to block out her words by focusing more intently on his task. He disinfected the cut that bisected her palm and she didn't even wince at the alcohol on the wound before he began to wrap it.

"I would have had a son before her. He was stillborn. Ed blamed me," she flexed her hand to test the bandage, giving a silent nod to tell him the binding was suitable. "I blamed him. We should have both walked away after that."

Daryl darted a quick glance at her, finding her eyes on his fingers as they tied off the first makeshift bandage. He couldn't gauge where any of it was going and wondered if even she had a point in the disjointed speech.

"Then there was a miscarriage when Sophia was just a few months old. It's almost a cliché, but he knocked me down a flight of stairs," she huffed out a laugh at the memory, shocking Daryl into stillness as he wondered how the hell that could be funny. "It really was an accident that time," she explained, seeing his reaction.

"We were the mall and had been shopping forever trying to get a stupid gift for his mother's birthday … we always had to make sure it was a better present than his younger brother would possibly think of … and we were both so tired. Sophia had been fussy the whole time and Ed had just taken her from me so I could dig through her diaper bag for her pacifier. We were right at the top of these stairs that went two stories down to the food court and we were arguing about where the damned thing had been left. I was twisting and turning with the bag between us when he reached for it to look where he said he'd put it. He yanked the bag off my shoulder, threw me off balance and I just went tumbling. I fell halfway down those stairs before I hit a customer who had come running up to help. Everyone who witnessed it said Ed had actually been horrified as he watched it happen. I would have liked to see that," she looked thoughtful.

"Edward Alexander Peletier horrified. A historic moment," her tone was bitter. "Someone should have taken a picture."

"I didn't even know I was pregnant," she continued after a moment. "The doctors said I was about eight weeks. Gave their usual speech about it just not having been time or meant to be. They always give the same condolences at such times. I went behind Ed's back and had my tubes tied after that. It was bad enough for Sophia…bringing another child into our mess would have been criminal."

The idea of her making such a choice and acting on it, kicked Daryl right in the gut. She'd been such a good mother, in her way. To know that motherhood was now forever lost to her tore at him inside.

"I don't regret it," she said, as if she'd read his mind. "It was the right choice. If I had lost another one then, I wouldn't be here now. And the idea of having a child in a place like this…"

"Lori's pregnant," he blurted out, wondering if Rick had intended for everyone to know at this point, but knowing Carol would carry it no further.

"A woman knows," she smiled at him, indicating that she hadn't needed to be told that bit of news. "She's been showing the signs more and more lately. Her moods and appetite. I caught her crying almost as much as I did at the farm, she just hid it better from everyone else."

They fell silent after that, while Daryl found butterfly Band-Aids to place over the cuts on her fingers, wrapping the middle finger in a layer of material to give it extra binding to limit any more bleeding.

When he was finished, he sat back while she turned and moved her hand, testing his work.

He hadn't seen much of her body, but there were no obvious scars on her as there were on him. Still, there was an air of weary experience about her in the way she flexed the injury and, earlier, had gauged the depth of the cuts.

He wasn't about to ask for anymore of an inventory of her past abuses than she had already volunteered. Any more than he was going to tell her about his past wounds.

"I feared him," she said, meeting his eyes without blinking to finally answer his original question. "I depended on him. I allowed circumstances to convince me that we needed him. To say I hated him would be as wrong as claiming to have ever loved him."

"Then why-"

"Stay?" she interrupted, clearly having had the question asked of her often, probably by herself more than any other. "He was a trap I fell into and never got out of. Quicksand...the more I struggled, the more I sank. I was just never strong enough-"

"Bullshit," he interrupted that, having seen the core of strength others may have missed. "You never would have gotten this far without having some guts of your own."

She tilted her head to the side, seeming to study him for a moment, before she pulled her newly wrapped hand to her chest and cradled it there.

"I guess we all have a lot to be learning about ourselves now," she mused, rather pointedly to his way of thinking.

They stared at one another for a few minutes after that, nothing really being said or solved with the look, but something still important in the contact at that moment.

"You should eat now," she rose from the table to go collect his plate of food. "It shouldn't be any worse cold than it was hot."

He stared, unseeing, at the congealing lumps of beans and canned meat she set on the table before him.

As she had moved her hand back from the plate, she had placed it on his bare shoulder and allowed it to linger there before drifting away in a caress that left him feeling pole axed.

"Thank you," she brushed a kiss against his temple and he didn't flinch away this time.

She gestured with her bandaged hand, but he imagined the gratitude was for more than tending a wound he had inadvertently caused. He gulped down the knot in his throat at her return to such tenderness with him and watched her turn to leave him alone in the camper to eat in peace.

As he stared at her back, some words finally came to him and he blurted them out once more, not having learned his lesson from the impulsive question that had set this scene in motion.

"I'm trying."

She stilled once more, but this time she twisted back toward him and met his gaze with a soft smile that came and went all too quickly.

"So am I."


	10. Chapter 10

Daryl woke from the nightmare with a start that jolted him to sit up and stare blindly at his feet. He expected to see something with a hold of him, but the only thing wrapped around his legs was the blanket that had gotten all twisted with his obvious restlessness.

He couldn't have recalled a thing from the tormenting nightmare to relate to anyone, only the remembered sense of panic and doom. The pangs of pain, regret and fear.

Whenever this happened, he imagined _them_, whatever it was that grasped for him in the darkness of sleep, to be the same thoughts and memories that drove him to violence when awake.

His family. His past.

His first encounter with a Walker. The realization that the world was no longer full of people who just disliked him as a Dixon, but replaced with those same fuckers literally wanting a piece of his ass or whatever flesh they could tear in to.

Jim. Merle.

Sophia.

Whenever he fell into a real sleep, it was like the images let him be long enough to rest, but the actual ghosts took over and tried to get at his mind and soul while he was so vulnerable.

Sometimes, he felt the flames of hell and woke bathed in sweat, knowing that that time the demons had gotten him nearer to the brimstone than he cared to be.

It wasn't what he saw at night that kept him from sleeping, it was what he felt.

_Goddamned boogeyman._

He cursed himself for letting the turmoil of the day wear him down to actual sleep and went to rub at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

He cursed again as he hit bruised flesh that immediately protested the contact.

A soft huff of laughter snapped his head around to find Carol watching him from a chair next to the bed.

"You think that's funny?" he snapped, eyes narrowed at the smile she was too slow to hide with her rising hand.

"'_Squirrely-eyed buttramming motherfucker?'" _she looked at him quizzically for a moment before cracking up.

He made no effort to defend his occasional mixing it up with the profanity, especially in light of her laughter. It was rare and genuine, just like her 'cowabunga' error had had him amused earlier in the day.

She was so fucking beautiful with a smile that it hit him like a series of body blows that left him dizzied. A punch to the throat that rendered him speechless, to the chest that knocked him breathless and to the gut that made him feel like his stomach had fallen out.

It turned him on too, his dick twitched with want and interest to show that it had been thankfully untouched during the skirmish with Shane. Her eyes glistened with tears, she laughed so hard, but those blue depths sparkled with pure mirth and mischief, erasing the age added by memories of her life that so often haunted her gaze.

The lust he could handle, it was a primal want that went to the core of man to mount and mate. It was the effect, though, of just seeing her smile that he floundered with. He just didn't understand how anyone could feel so fucking much from something so damned little.

His fingers curled into the bedding, knowing they couldn't reach for her, as he forced himself to look away.

Once he'd gotten himself under control, he sensed her doing the same as the laughter slowly changed to a sigh of breath.

"I've never heard it put quite like that," she said, drawing his attention back to find her still grinning as she swiped at her eyes with the edge of the blanket that covered her. "I don't know that I've ever laughed so hard, either."

"Glad I could be of service," he snorted, the words lacking the bite he had intended.

Her eyes met his, blinking as she sensed the sincerity he'd unwillingly put into the statement.

The amusement slowly faded from her expression, but it remained soft.

Became wondering.

Her tongue poked out to touch just one side of her mouth before it slipped back in to leave the skin glistening moistly in the dimness of the room. She pulled that lower corner into her mouth to nibble at before he could get any ideas about those lips and his tongue…any _more_ ideas, rather.

He was glad he had put a shirt on after cleaning up the kitchen. Her eyes seemed to just strip it away, but he was still glad for the concealment as she looked him over, focus coming to rest on the chest he strove to keep from heaving too much with the force of his breathing and pound of his heart.

The RV was quiet. The room was dark except for the light coming in from the lantern T-Dog had left on in the kitchen area where the other man slept. There was just the sliding door into the sleeping area and all either of them had to do was rise to pull it shut for them to be isolated in the darkness.

Daryl was up for it.

His body knew of ways that they could do it without interference from his injuries. His mind really hadn't had any arguments against the idea with the way she looked at him and so clearly wanted the same as he did.

She licked at her lips again and that was what put him off for later.

He couldn't even rub his eyes without hurting, there could be no kissing the way he wanted to with his face still swollen and lip busted from a beating just hours before. That didn't mean they couldn't fuck, but he wanted more than that.

He wanted kissed and touched by her lips and hands and he needed it to be as painless for them both as possible.

Daryl needed a distraction and found it in the way she pushed aside the blanket draped over her seated body.

"How long you been there?" he asked with a frown, trying to gauge what time of night it might be.

"Few hours," she shrugged, drawing attention to a shoulder left bare by the loose top that fell down her arm at the movement.

He cleared his throat, looked away from that patch of pale skin and licked his dry lips before he could continue.

"I don't need watched over for a bunch of bruises," he glared. "You shoulda gone to bed."

"I couldn't exactly do that," she said with a rather pointed glance at the bed he was in.

He hoped he didn't utter the "oh" of realization he had when it struck him that he was in the place she'd been sleeping since the group got out of Atlanta.

"Coulda split a tent with Andrea-"

"The camp outside is set up to take down in a blink," she interrupted. "Andrea is in Shane's tent and Glenn's a nice guy, but I think it would be a bit odd to share his."

"No reason not to set one up for yourself. Mine's-"

"Still packed on the roof with whatever surplus supplies we have," she argued calmly, sitting up straighter against the hard wooden back of her chair. "There was no reason for anyone to go through any fuss for me when this is perfectly fine."

"Can't get no rest like that," he grumbled.

"Mothers have done beside vigils in worse and I'm no exception," she smiled faintly at his ire.

"You my fucking mother now?" his eyes narrowed at that, given where his thoughts kept wandering and where he had thought her mind to have gone too.

"No," she shook her head with a frown at his attitude, "Nor was I "watching over you for a bunch of bruises." The bed was taken, the chair was here and I wanted to be with…"

She broke off just then, but he filled the unspoken "_you_" in the blank she left and felt like an ass as she got to her feet in full huff. She shoved the chair back into a corner, flicked her cover out to lie on the floor, pulled a pillow and sheet from some unknown stash then made to lie on the blanket.

"Ya ain't sleeping on the floor," he snapped, scooting forward to throw his legs off the bed and sit on the edge looking down at her.

"You did it," she argued, giving him her back as she turned pointedly on her side to face away from him.

"That's different," he began, but she finished the thought before it had fully formed.

"Daryl Dixon, if you say it's different because I'm a woman I will not be liable for what I do," she warned, flipping to her back to glare up at him. "You're injured. You need the bed. I'm fine."

She tossed once more to her side to leave him facing her back, the move clearly meant to indicate she felt the discussion over. The way she flipped the blanket up over her head seemed to put the exclamation mark on that point.

"Get up here," he tried.

"I'm fine right here," she muffled the words by pulling the covers tightly around her from head to toe. "Let me go back to sleep."

"You weren't sleeping," he argued, stretching out his leg to nudge her shoulder with his foot.

"You _were_, so how would you know?

"You wouldn't be so damned cranky if you'd been asleep."

"_I'm_ cranky?" She turned on to her back to scoff pointedly up at him.

"You don't get up here, I'll be a hell of a lot crankier," he glared and bit back a reluctant grin at the exchange.

They were bickering.

He'd never bickered with a woman before in his whole life.

She stared up at him and visibly took the time to consider his threat. He decided he didn't much care for the exercise of arguing with a female. Words had never done him much good in the past, so he opted for action.

He lunged forward, ribs be damned, to yank the cover from her and fling it aside then grabbed her before she could do more than process the loss of her blanket. Her hands went instinctively to his shoulders when he scooped her up, but he tossed her to the narrow bed before she could get any kind of hold on him.

She lay on the rumpled covers and watched him with an awareness that made him harder. She looked wary of his actions, but not fearful. She licked her lips and seemed to read in him how he wanted to strip her bare and fall on her like a starving man.

She looked like she wouldn't have protested such an act.

"Sleep," he ordered, more to himself than her.

She scooted toward the wall to make room for him and he grabbed her blanket from the floor to cover them rather than try pulling the bedding out from under her.

She turned on her side, back to the wall and watched as he laid down on the edge of the mattress. He wanted to turn away from her gaze, but his left side had gotten the brunt of it and there would be no sleeping on it.

Her hand came up to help him cover their bodies, smoothing the material over him before she tucked it beneath the blanket to skim her fingers over the ball of his shoulder. He felt the bandages on her fingertips and was reminded of another reason why making a move on her this night would just be another dumb idea.

"What a pair we are," she whispered, seeming to sense his thoughts.

Her hand slid down his side to rest meaningfully over his busted ribs and his eyes jumped to meet hers in the dim lighting. She moved her hand to rest on his hip, gave him a brief smile and then shifted closer to nuzzle her forehead against his shoulder.

He felt exhaustion pull at him and bent his head over hers as he wished he could think of something to say to her at such a close moment. She seemed to be drifting off quickly in this new position and he found himself brushing a feather light kiss over the soft buzz of hair on the top of her head. He hadn't thought she would have felt such a fleeting gesture, but her fingers tightened on his hip and he knew she hadn't drifted off yet.

She didn't say anything else and he continued to keep his breathing as even as possible until he was certain she'd fallen asleep. When her body relaxed and her hand fell from his body to the small space of bed between their bodies, he felt the tension leave his own form as sleep crept up to claim him as well.

His last thought before darkness fell over his mind once more was a hope that they truly were and could be what she had said.

_A pair._


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Sorry for the delay on this one and the relative shortness of content. My 'subscribers' probably got an alert hours ago that this chapter has been posted, but I'd actually just finished a few corrections on Chap 10 and made the mistake of "Adding" the update to the series for some reason when I only meant to update that chapter, so in effort to keep the emails honest, I busted this bit out for an real new chapter in this series.

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><p>Daryl woke to the sound of shuffling steps as someone tried to quietly cross the room to the dresser. He tensed at first, but forced himself to relax when his numb right arm told him Carol still slept beside him and he didn't want to wake her.<p>

There could be only one other person who'd think to creep in with breakfast; possibly two, but he discounted the idea of it being Andrea even before he heard the thud of foot connecting with dresser followed by a stifled male curse.

"You'll never make it in the ballet, twinkle toes," he drawled softly, careful to pitch his voice so Rick would hear the words, but Carol hopefully wouldn't be roused by them.

"I'm not here," the deputy denied, automatically pitching his voice to the same level Daryl had used. "I saw nothing. Carol left that food on the dresser last night."

"You trying to brainwash me now?"

He cracked an eye and turned just enough to be able to see the other man as he attempted with sneak out of the room with a grin.

"Just pointing out that you're obviously still asleep and having a dream that I am trying very hard to get out of before Carol wakes up," the man looked sheepishly at the woman to make sure the conversation wasn't waking her.

"If this was a dream, you'd be Daisy Duke and I'd have the General Lee waiting outside," Daryl scoffed, shaking his head at the deputy. "Try not to break anything on your way out."

"I was never here," Rick retorted.

A thud followed the man disappearing from Daryl's sight, followed by another soft curse from the fool. Daryl wondered what the other man had stumbled on or into. There was no excuse for such antics given the daylight that already lit the space around him.

He refused to believe that the sight of Carol in the bed with him could have so rattled Rick. Sure, if they'd been in a tangle of naked limbs, Rick would maybe have been rightly shocked, but Daryl damned well would have closed the door before any nakedness to keep the others from creeping in on such intimacy.

"Daisy Duke, huh?"

Carol's amused drawl drew him from his thoughts and he turned to meet her twinkling gaze as she shifted to prop herself up on her elbow beside him.

"Damn," he sighed, pushing himself to sit up against the wall. "Tried not to wake you."

"I appreciate the effort, but I tend to be up by this time anyway," she followed up in sitting up and stared at him thoughtfully. "Is Daisy Duke the kind of woman you dream about?"

"Been known to," he answered honestly, "when I was kid. That car, though? I'll always want a General Lee till the day I die."

She scoffed at that response and shook her head before looking past him to the dresser.

"We must be moving out," she mused, leaning over him to get the canned fruit and can opener that Rick had apparently brought in.

"Meddling nincompoop," he groused upon seeing the breakfast that Rick had woken them to deliver.

"I'm sure he just wanted to make sure you were ok."

He watched her bandaged fingers fumble with the hand held can opener for a moment before he took the device and can from her. He made short work of the task, cutting around the top of the can until the lid dropped down to quickly be swallowed by the thick syrup on the peaches they'd been given.

He fished the metal out, carefully sucked the sweetness from it then tossed it aside to the dresser along with the no longer needed can opener. Without thought, he put his fingers back in the can to bring up a wedge of soft fruit and offer it to her. She blinked at the gesture, looked past him again to the dresser and then scooted closer to take the peach into her mouth. While she slowly chewed her bite, he dug in for a slice of his own and popped it in his mouth.

Meat would have been preferable to start the day; something salty at least, but the fruit was a refreshingly sweet break from the norm.

"He brought us forks," Carol said with a nod toward the dresser after swallowing her peach.

"So he did," Daryl gave the utensils a passing glance and delved back into the syrup with his fingers. "Got a problem with this?"

She blinked at his again as he extended the slice toward her, but with a shrug and almost grin she moved to take the fruit from his fingers.

He enjoyed the slick slide of the peaches in his grasp. They were almost slimy with the liquid they'd been canned in, but it wasn't an unpleasant texture. Some foods were fun to play with and he deemed the peaches to belong in that category as he took turns feeding them both pieces from the can.

When they began to run low, Carol surprised him by tipping the can toward her to fish out a chunk with her good fingers. She extended it to his lips and he realized why she had blinked as he found himself doing that at her gesture.

Feeding one another was a pretty damned intimate thing to do. Add in the bed they still shared, no matter their fully clothed status, and the messy quality of the food they had and Daryl realized he'd made another miscalculation in their interactions. Having gone too far to turn for a fork at that point, he bent forward to take the slice from her fingers, sucking the peach into his mouth and feeling the brush of her fingertips over his lips.

A knowing smile curled her lips when he stiffened at the contact and she drew her hand away slowly.

"Jesus Christ, woman, are you trying to kill me?" he asked as she put her fingers to her mouth to suck at the syrup glistening on her flesh.

"Just giving Daisy a run for her money," she joked, blushing under the sudden fire in his gaze.

"Who the fuck is Daisy?" he snapped, putting the can aside on the dresser and grabbing the side of her neck to drag her in for a kiss.

"Look, Daryl, you should really be-" Andrea stopped her full speed charge into the sleeping quarters as he released Carol as quickly as he had grabbed her. "You really should not be disturbed," the blonde backtracks, forgetting whatever mission she had had coming in. "I was never here."

The woman fled the room and, thoughtfully, slid the door closed behind her.

"Can you imagine what a nice morning this would have been if they really hadn't come in?" Carol sighed, dropping her forehead to his chest.

Daryl could imagine that and more, but he sensed something happening among the group that he ought to be aware or part of so he forced himself to move away from her.

"I should probably," he got to his feet and jerked his head toward the door and whatever was happening outside the RV.

"Yeah," she nodded and moved from the bed to stand beside him. "Let's see what drama today will bring."

With that, she took his hand, pushed open the door and led him from the Winnebago while he was too dumbfounded to think of anything other than the warmth of her palm and fingers wrapped around his own. He felt the sticky residue of the peaches sealing their flesh together and decided that whatever was stirring in the camp, it would do nothing to ruin the way the day had begun for him.


	12. Chapter 12

By Dixon family standards the argument was the equivalent of a whispered conversation.

The words and expressions were heated between Dale and Shane, but Daryl didn't see any real reason for everyone to be present for the scene.

A quick glance to Carol found her unimpressed by the drama as well. She gave him a wry little grin and he gave one back, not really sure why either of them found it amusing that lifetime's of abuse had left them without an abundance of concern over such a small disturbance.

"Daryl," Rick said, directing all attention toward them as they hung back beside the RV, "weigh in here."

Glenn stopped crimping the bill of his cap and looked up, seeming relieved at an additional presence.

Andrea, who had been focused on the arguing males, looked over with an apologetic shrug to convey her regret at having brought them from their private moment in the Winnebago to join in this debate. Her regret turned to a soft, encouraged smile when her blue eyes dropped to stare at his hand clasped in Carol's.

The fool woman looked so damned happy for _him_ that he immediately pried his sticky hand away from the comfortable warmth of Carol's.

He raised the hand to scratch at the growing beard on his chin; tried not to feel the sudden disappointment aimed at him from the blonde and the woman at his side.

"Seems to me we should find a solid shelter for base first and foremost," he contributed, knowing the statement to be weak but he found no other thought to share as Carol slowly moved away from him at his silent rejection of anything openly _them_ in front of the others.

"No shit, Sherlock," Shane huffed in obvious want for a fight to provide outlet for the fires that burned in his dark gaze.

"Then keep digging, Watson," Daryl retorted automatically to the line and got an eye roll even from Carl at the zinger more appropriate to be uttered by a five year old.

"Fort Benning was the goal before the farm," Shane snapped to apparently restate his own theory, "It's the best damned course we have now."

"I think west would be wise," Dale turned to share his idea, seeing Daryl as a potential ally. "The farm was ideal for its isolation. What's more isolated than the rural areas of the Midwest?"

"I say east," T-Dog contributed with a sigh that spoke to how few seemed to have listened to that option.

"Coast could be good," Daryl turned thoughtful and scratched absently at the scar on his chest beneath his shirt. "Put our backs to the ocean and have one less angle to protect from attack."

The black man's head turned slowly to stare at him in open shock before he blinked and rose to expand on his theory as the floor was clearly opened for him to speak up.

"I was thinking get to the islands. It might take some doing at first, depending on how many people were there when this all began, but once we clear it of Walkers once then we'd be done. I've certainly not seen any of these things swimming," T-Dog looked around to see other heads in the group starting to nod slowly with the logic. "We'd have it all to ourselves. Homes to occupy, supplies at the ready in them and all that land to try farming with."

"Good thinking," Daryl said before he gave a nod and dropped his fidgeting hand. "What the hell'd you need me for?"

"Now that's just brilliant," Shane huffed in disgust at the growing consensus. "We need a safe, sound place as soon as fucking possible and you're voting to cross the whole damned state; going twice if not three times as far as Fort Benning, to find a fucking island that just might be so overrun with Walkers that we trap ourselves with no way out because you all only saw how that would mean there'd be no way for more zombies to get on your new wonderland?"

The angry tone and sarcastic words aside, the asshole managed to find a valid flaw in the plan.

"So we find more grenades," Carol spoke up softly to contribute. "We find ways to kill more of them at one time."

Even Daryl looked at her in surprise for her to have spoken up on the matter. She met his gaze with a little self-deprecating twist of her lips.

"I've always wanted to visit them," she added quietly, as if he needed some further explanation from her.

That settled it for him and he stood straighter to prepare for any further argument against the idea.

"The islands are all accessible by road," Dale spoke up to point out cautiously. "We won't be as isolated as you're thinking, Theodore."

"That's a benefit to my way of thinking," Rick interjected with a pointed look at his wife. "The islands are for seasonal visitors. Supplies will be limited and we'll need options when the time comes for things we need and can't find there."

No further arguments arose and the group grew quiet with the knowledge that their course had been set.

"Ok," Rick stated firmly with a decisive nod. "We've got a lot of ground to cover and a lot to do to get there. Day's wasting."

The majority of the group sprang into action to break down and pack away their camp supplies. Daryl held to his injured ribs as reason for why he stayed leaning against the RV rather than rush to help.

"What if we don't make it that far?" his eyes narrowed upon Lori as she moved to whisper the doubt into her husband's ear.

"Then we stop and take shelter where we can," the man vowed with a stern glance softened by the reassuring way he stroked the woman's cheek. "I won't let anything happen to you."

The man bent his dark head to press against hers to reinforce the promise and she smiled weakly back at her husband, clearly not fully assured by the promise, but at least moved by his uttering such words.

Daryl found his eyes moving in search of Carol; wondering if words were really all it took sometimes.

He found Andrea blocking his vision, though, when he turned to the left and jumped slightly at having had no fucking clue that the woman had approached him.

"Sorry," she grinned in contradiction of the apology, clearly surprised to have managed to have startled him. "Got a minute?"

Her hesitant tone and air made him frown and his hand moved to start scratching habitually at his chest again as he sensed some kind of lecture coming. She took his silence as equal to agreement and propped her shoulder against the side of the Winnebago to focus fully on him.

"I really am sorry that I interrupted you," she began, "If I'd had any idea…"

She trailed off, deliberately giving him an opening to discuss whatever it was he had with Carol. He said nothing, but stayed in place to indicate his willingness to hear out whatever she seemed to have to say.

"So," she tried a more direct tactic, "You and Carol?"

It was an offer for him to open up, a chance to bounce his thoughts and fears off someone else's mind, but he couldn't accept it. If he couldn't find the words for Carol he wasn't about to try and explain himself to Andrea.

"We're friends, aren't we?" the woman straightened to face him head on. "I won't intrude if that's what you think this is, but if you're with her then you owe her an apology."

He knew what she meant and had been working on the damned words for the next time he got Carol alone.

"If PDAs aren't your thing…public displays of affection," she clarified at his blank stare, "Carol would understand. Just tell her. Don't pull away from her like that again."

"That it?" he huffed at the chiding instruction.

"No. Get your head out of your ass," she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. "I know how hard that is for any guy, but I'm coming to expect more from you."

He scoffed at whatever had given her _that_ notion, no offense felt or taken at her words.

"You have a chance for something real and good," she softened, something shifting in her expression as her attention moved to study the group as the others collapsed and folded the tents. "There's so little chance for happiness here, Daryl," she whispered, voice and gaze catching in a way that made him straighten sharply to pay attention. "Carol and you each deserve love," she seemed to have to force her attention back to him. "Don't screw it up."

_I'll be damned,_ he thought, his own attention still on the object that had almost distracted her.

"Just think about it," she concluded, sighing as she apparently ran out of any other thoughts to contribute to such a one-sided conversation.

"Andrea," he said quietly when she turned away, "seeing as we're friends and butting in on one another's love lives here. You might want to reconsider bedding down with the bastard that slept with his wife."

She froze in her tracks and he watched her eyes dart guiltily toward Rick among the others before her head dropped almost dejectedly forward.

"Am I that obvious?" he had to strain to hear her whisper.

"Didn't have a damned clue till you just told me," he assured her honestly.

"I guess I asked for it, prying into your relationship," she turned back to him with a pained smile.

"You mean well," he shrugged aside the unspoken apology.

"But what could I possibly know to try giving you advice, right?"

It suddenly helped him to see that strong, confident woman showing such loss and discouragement. She was just as fucked in the love department as he felt, but she was right in that he could actually _do_ something about his situation.

"Just wondering what you're doing with Shane if your heart isn't in it."

"Because his heart isn't in it either, you mean?" she sighed, tucked her hands in her pockets and turned to locate Shane's shaven head bobbing over the task of stacking folded tents to carry to the RV for loading. "I can't afford to be in love right now and I don't want to risk hurting anyone that might fall in love with me, but I'm not as strong as you. I need some kind of physical connection and he's willing to provide it."

The confession was stark and raw; oddly painful for Daryl to hear from a woman that he did think of as friend, but he didn't know of a way to argue her logic or discourage her choice.

"He ever gets too _physical_," is all he found to say, "you best be telling me about it."

"You think Shane would abuse me?" she turned to ask in surprise before it turned to indignation. "You think _I'd let_ Shane abuse me?"

She looked set to kick his ass for the words and he grinned, raising his hands in a show of surrender and defenselessness. Some of the starch seemed to leave her britches and she eased back to a soft smile at his posture.

They exchanged brief nods and she turned once more to join the others in getting things ready for departure.

She paused after two steps to glance over her shoulder and add a quiet, "Thank you."

He accepted the gratitude with a solemn jerk of his chin, letting his own thanks go unspoken for the words she had taken time to speak to him.

He watched the group for a bit then began to bend and twist to test his ribs. The twinges of pain weren't crippling so he moved forward to begin gathering the tents and carry them to the Winnebago.

Carol looked at him with immediate concern marring her features into a frown and he shrugged off her worry to continue with the labor.

Andrea's conversation had given him a great deal to think about and he damned well wasn't going to go hide in the RV for his mind to run in circles when he could wear it out with physical exertion and abuse.

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><p>AN: The 'backs to the ocean' idea is credited to _Planet Terror_ and the escape to the islands is pure _Dawn of the Dead (2004) _and, yes, I realize I watch perhaps a few too many horror themed movies and shows_._ Also, sorry for my distraction from Caryl fics of late, but as you can see the muses aren't dead. :)


	13. Chapter 13

He noticed her favoring her right hand as they were finished loading up the dismantled camp.

She flexed her fingers with a grimace as he watched; bit the corner of her mouth and frowned down at her hand.

Daryl bit off a curse and stomped across the distance to Carol's side. She jumped at his sudden presence and instinctively jerked her hand back when he reached for it to inspect the damage.

"Dammit, woman," he snapped in his head, but the words came out softer, gentler at the sight of her bleeding again.

He felt the lectures on the tip of his tongue; an I told you so that itched to be uttered at her not getting the cuts stitched.

Her middle and index fingers had both bled through the bandages; the latter was a bit of a surprise as he hadn't thought it that deep.

"I might be willing to reconsider a stitch or two," she said after a moment of his intense scrutiny.

His narrowed eyes jumped up to hers and he saw her wince once more when he applied a slight pressure to the injured digits.

He looked to the others who were returning from the woods after answering nature's call in preparation for another long stretch in the cars. His eyes latched on Lori, but Shane caught his eye before he could call to her for help.

The other man's blackened eyes narrowed as they took in the scene and he stalked over to them; all puffed up and Officer in charge.

"What did you do?" the words came out with the snap and snarl Shane had clearly intended.

The man reached for Carol's injured hand like he had a right to it and her eyes widened as she jumped back. Daryl helped by moving to wedge his shoulder against the cop's thick chest to keep him away from her.

An exasperated huff of air blew from Shane's nostrils and Daryl took a moment to enjoy the man's visibly broken nose.

"If he hurt you, I can help."

Snorts of surprise and disbelief escaped Carol and Daryl simultaneously at that; followed immediately by his "I'd never" and her "he'd never."

"Carol, you alright?" Rick intervened before the moment could get weirder.

"It's nothing," she shrank away from the attention, hugging herself and tucking her fingers guiltily against her side.

Blood smeared on her shirt from the maneuver meant to conceal her injury and both cops reacted to the sight of the red stain. Rick took hold of Daryl's shoulder to pull him back while Shane hunched down to approach Carol with more caution.

"Let him look," the Deputy hissed in his ear when Daryl automatically snarled and moved to jerk away from the hand restraining him.

Even though the instruction hadn't been meant for her, Carol looked at Rick with her eyes wide before she hesitantly held out her hand to Shane.

Daryl was proven wrong at Rick's intervention as the scene got weirder before his watchful eyes.

Shane softened his stance, loosening limbs and muscle to reduce the intimidation of his build. He bent his knees to bring his eyes to her level and Daryl could suddenly see the good cop in the other man as he adjusted himself to handle a woman he assumed to have been battered.

He reached for her hand slowly to let her know she could pull it back again without him getting rough, but she kept it extended to watch suspiciously as the man took hold of her wrist.

Daryl watched her freeze at that hold, going deathly still and getting that same haunted look in her eyes that she had the day before when he gripped her wrist in a similar fashion. That expression was like a kick in the gut and Daryl knew he would have to ask where she went; what demons chased her when someone held her arm like that.

"These cuts are deep," Shane said with his voice surprisingly soft as he removed the bandages to probe the sliced skin.

"Get me some water and the kit," he ordered without looking away as fresh blood welled up from more of the cuts from his survey.

Rick moved to obey while Daryl stared at Shane as he led a dumbfounded Carol to a nearby log to sit down.

"What happened?" Andrea asked as the others gathered around him to observe the scene.

"Cut her hand," he groused, scratching at his neck without looking away from Carol's pale hand in Shane's tanned one.

No one bothered to ask more after that, seeing no story would be told by him.

Rick returned from the RV to go to Shane with a jug of water and the first aid kit.

Everyone settled back to watch after that as the big man proceeded to carefully cleanse away the blood.

Shane set the jug down then stared for a moment at her dripping hand. He looked around to the group as if he considered asking someone to get him a towel, but he just shook his head upon seeing the captivated audience. After a moment he whipped off his camo t-shirt to use it for drying the skin around her cuts.

Daryl shook his own head at the other man's love for flaunting his body. The bruises he saw on Shane's torso were encouraging, though, letting him know he'd gotten in more licks than he'd remembered in their skirmish.

"He's good at this," Rick told him as the Deputy moved to his side. "Always used to patch things up when we were kids. He probably would've become a vet or doctor if puberty and sports hadn't gotten hold of him in junior high."

The insight into Shane's past was interesting in how much Daryl wasn't interested, but Rick seemed on a roll and the rest of the group was in the mood for a story.

Daryl kept his focus on the man playing doctor with _his_ woman, letting the story of Shane Walsh's rise to high school all-star fade to the background.

He saw Shane's mouth moving, but he spoke too low and calmly for the words to carry over Rick's chatter. Daryl wanted to move closer to hear the words the man said to Carol, but it would have been too obvious.

It made him twitchy, though, the way that shaven head bowed over her to tend those wounds. There was an intimacy to it with them both seated on that fallen tree. Daryl should have been the one doing it. He wasn't too good with the idea of stitching up her skin, though, which had been his reason for not doing it the night before.

He watched Carol's lips curl in that little half-smile of surprised amusement he'd only seen twice before. When she'd smiled like that from something _he _had said or done. The rough edges of his gnawed fingernails dug harder at the old scar on his chest as he felt his teeth grind.

Jealousy wasn't something Daryl felt over a woman.

He'd felt jealous years ago when the Triumph was restored and given to Merle by their asshole father, but aside from that he'd never really had much experience with the emotion.

It was the kind of feeling that fucked with your Zen; messed up your mojo. It distracted focus from more important things like getting the hell over _it_ and doing something productive by way of killing or destroying shit.

Daryl had a serious want to break those thick fingers that so nimbly threaded closed the deeper wounds on Carol's hand.

If that asshole lingered any longer over the task then he'd need some sutures of his own.

As if sensing the venom of his train of thought, Carol looked up suddenly and gave **_him_** _that _smile and the jealousy just fucking left.

His fingers slowed in their nervous picking, stopped, then fell to his side.

He drew in a deep breath and felt his own lips curling in a half-grin to match hers.

Her smile changed as a light entered her eyes that made the breath shudder from his lungs.

His feet began to move without conscious thought until he found himself standing over her. She tilted her head back to stare up at him and his fingers went to the fragile arch of her neck, felt the warmth and pulse there.

There was a weight on him from the attention they had from the group, but he was more concerned with the weight of the knowledge within him that this was a moment that he couldn't blow.

Shane made some noise that distracted him for a moment and his head jerked toward the other man.

"Might want to be more careful with your toys next time," the cop said as he pushed himself to stand from straddling the log.

"It was an accident," Carol and Daryl snapped in tandem as she jumped to her feet and his defense.

"Well, hell, I've never heard that one before," Shane chuckled as he grabbed up the supplies and moved to return them to the RV.

"Sorry," Carol said to draw his attention back from glaring after the other man. "I actually think he meant well."

She raised her hand and flexed the fingers. Daryl took hold of her to inspect the stitches himself, careful to grip her palm rather than make the mistake of going for her wrist to ruin the moment.

"Not bad," he admitted with a light touch to the three separate cuts that now sported tight, even seams tied with a neat little knot to draw the skin together.

Her fingers fluttered at his touch and he looked up sharply to see if he'd hurt her, but there was no grimace upon her face.

"Tickles," she admitted with a sheepish expression.

He looked back at her cuts; the skin angry and red around the new stitches and asked, "Does it work?"

"Does what work?" she asked with a frown he heard but didn't look up to see as he pressed a kiss to the slice across her palm.

"Kiss and make it better?"

Her breath caught and her fingers fluttered against his cheek as he rubbed his lips over the pads of her fingertips.

"Doesn't hurt," she exhaled and slowly raised her hand to skim over his hair.

"Guess I shoulda tried it last night," he husked, lifting his head into her touch.

"I think you were doing pretty good this morning."

"Till Tweedles Dumb and Dee moseyed in," he snorted with a glance back toward the group that tried to pretend that they were all focused on the final preparations for leaving and not at all aware of anything happening between Carol and him.

Her fingers ghosted a path from his head down the side of his face in a faint caress.

"We can always try again later," she pressed uninjured fingertips to his lower lip. "If you want…"

The path of skin she had traversed on the way to his mouth fairly tingled and his lip felt singed under the simple touch of her index finger. He raised his hand to remove the burning touch and looked into her eyes as he tangled his fingers with hers.

"I want."


	14. Chapter 14

"Time to go," Rick called out.

Daryl was only surprised at how long they'd been allowed as much time out in the open as they'd had.

Carol smiled at him with faint regret, squeezed his fingers then turned to walk back to the RV. He didn't allow her to pull her away from his though as they walked; he'd learned a lesson from that kind of move already.

She looked back at their joined hands then to him in surprise. He couldn't think of anything to say so he simply moved to her side then onward until they walked together back to the Winnebago.

Glenn stopped him next to the vehicle, looking overly anxious as he clearly waited to catch Daryl's eye.

He let go of her hand at that and gave her a nod to go on into the RV while he saw what the kid wanted. She looked at the Korean with a maternal concern in her gaze before she climbed into the travel trailer.

As soon as they were alone, Glenn drew out a familiar set of keys and forced them into Daryl's hands.

"I only took them so you'd still have the thing," the guy explained like Daryl had demanded one.

"Appreciate that," he said.

He put his finger through the key ring and gave it a distracted twirl as he looked around for the bike for the first time. It was parked off to the side with no visible damage from where he stood. He didn't go to the machine for a more thorough inspection.

The keys jangled to a stop as Daryl gave them a toss and quick catch as he turned back to Glenn. The kid jumped when he took hold of his hand and put the keys back in them.

"Appreciate it if you'd keep her rolling a little longer."

"But…" dark eyes went from him to the keys to the Triumph then back.

"Just," Daryl said firmly as an almost giddy light began to enter those eyes, "another day to give my side some more time."

Glenn's head bobbed to convey his acceptance of the decree and Daryl watched indulgently as the kid raced off to hop on the motorcycle.

The Grimes family was loaded up in the Cherokee with Rick standing in the open driver's side door to make sure everyone else was getting a move on.

Andrea had just finished buckling herself into the passenger seat of Shane's Hyundai when Daryl looked toward that puke green little car. She gave him an encouraging smile and wave when she caught his eye. He sighed at seeing the woman settling in with that man, but to each their own in however they needed to get by in this place and time.

He looked back to Rick with a nod to the man.

"All aboard?" the Deputy asked with a quick visual sweep of the vehicles to do his own head count of the group.

"Roll out," Daryl agreed before he climbed into the Winnebago and shut the door.

He found Carol seated at the table across from T-Dog as the other man shuffled a deck of playing cards. She looked up at the sound of his entrance and showed relief upon seeing him; like she'd expected him to get back on that bike and ride on alone.

It was a sign of their need to talk and he gave her a telling jerk of his jaw toward the bedroom after intrusting Dale to get the vehicle moving. She slid from the table with a smile of apology to T-Dog as the man's hands slowly stopped shuffling those cards.

"Solitaire again," the black man huffed as they moved back toward the sleeper section. "Least Glenn talks to pass the time in this old rolling turd."

"Ask Dale to tell you about life in those olden days before zombies or electricity," Daryl instructed with a backward smirk.

"I heard that," the old man called from behind the wheel as the engine chugged to life.

"Already heard all about that shit," T-Dog said at the same time, "and I never have, never will ask for more stories from our father time."

"I will brake check you all," Dale threatened.

The guys laughed at that and T-Dog began to lay the cards out for a game of solitaire.

Daryl turned back toward the bedroom and found Carol settling herself on the bed; back against the wall. He had Carol and a place they could be alone; with a bed. The amusement left him despite the continued bickering between Dale and T-Dog.

He stepped into the room and slid the door shut behind him. It closed with a click that seemed overly loud between them and he cringed at the sound as the others' voices became muffled by the barrier.

Her feet were bare atop the covers on the mattress and he moved to sit on the bed to take off his own shoes to follow her example.

She kept quiet as he untied the laces; fumbled and ended up tangling them along with his thoughts.

He'd wanted to talk when he thought to get her alone, but his tongue felt too thick to form words; if any had even come to mind.

Hardly any time had really passed since they left the bed; an hour or two, max. Given the content of their exchange before Rick rallied everyone to move out, Daryl found his mind stuck on only one subject and he knew he couldn't talk about _it _with her.

_Did she want to pick up where they'd been forced to leave off?_

_Was __**this**__ the later?_

_Did __**he**__ want them to pick up where they'd left off?_

He heard the ghost of Merle cackle in his head and he damned near tied the fingers of his left hand into the shoelaces he was trying to undo.

"If I had known how good Shane was at sewing I would have left more of your shirts for him to do," Carol broke the ice and settled his nerves with the introduction of a topic far removed from sex.

His hands moved steadily to unlace and remove his boots as he let the attempt at humor pass with little more than a grunt to acknowledge her words.

After he slid his feet free, he turned on the bed to face her with a glance at her stitched fingers. He remembered Shane bent over her fingers and that moment the two had shared with him only able to watch from the outside.

"I don't want you alone with him," he said, surprising them both with his choice of words.

She blinked at him, silent for far longer than he was comfortable with before her head tipped to the side to observe him.

"You can't honestly be jealous of that man," her brow puckered into a frown at the thought.

"It's more than that," he brushed a finger over that furrowed skin then dropped his hand to gather his thoughts. "Guy's not in his right mind anymore. Got no damned idea where it's at anymore, but it's no good to the group."

She shook her head and snorted softly.

"He tried to give me the same warnings about being alone with you," she grinned.

"I doubt it was the _same_ warnings," he grinned back and shifted to settle against the wall beside her. "Guy's violent, is all. Nothing's sacred to him 'cept Lori and the boy. The man wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice his own mother if she posed a threat or detriment to what he still sees as his family."

"But…they're Rick's," she twisted to look at him, brow furrowed deeper. "Rick's family. They always were, always will be after what that man's been through. It's one of the few things that actually encourage me about our possible future in all this."

He filed the last bit of that away to get back to in their discussion and focused on finishing his thoughts on Shane so the topic could be removed from their list of potential silence breakers.

"Whatever Shane's been through in all of this, it's made him dangerous. Maybe just to Rick, but I sense malice toward Dale and, clearly," he waved a hand at his bruised face, "I'm on his shit list. The guy's gone beyond off his rocker. He's fallen clear off the porch and is close to wandering off the reservation altogether."

She laughed at his phrasing which erased the frown, but he hoped she heard the truth in the warning.

He never wanted to see her alone with the other man again, even if the whole group is watching the next time.

"I know, you," she said, all serious after a moment of enjoying her amusement. "I've been with them longer than any of the others. I spent years watching Ed disintegrate. It began happening for Shane the moment Rick walked into our camp. I've never seen a man as shattered and elated in the same instant. That much emotion can never be a good thing."

"How much is too much?" he asked, curious and genuinely not knowing.

"I think as long as you're still wondering if it's too much or too little, you're getting it pretty much right."

"Seems a rather good philosophy," he accepted with a nod.

They fell silent for several minutes, just sitting side by side and breathing in an oddly synced in/out rhythm. Eventually she shifted downward a little until her head could tilt and rest comfortably against his shoulder.

His arm shifted to curl around her shoulders and it was the most natural thing in the world to nuzzle his chin against the top of her head to urge it toward the softer cushion of his chest.

It was comfortable; the quiet and connection between them.

On an emotional level he realized he could get used to it; spoiled by it.

On the base level of pure selfish survival instinct he knew he shouldn't get used to it; weakened by it.

He blamed that part of himself for the opening of his damned mouth.

"What else encourages you about a possible future in this?"

She didn't shift away from him at the question and he was glad his tongue hadn't asked the tougher question of her sensitivity to wrist clasps.

"You," she answered simply and without hesitation. "You give me hope."

He stilled at the words; felt them beat again him like the wings of a butterfly and knew that if he responded to the words that they might crumble to ruin like the insect's gossamer wings when touched.

"And us," she said more quietly, the words muffled as she curled her arm over his waist and tucked her face into his shirt. "_We_ can make it."

He heard that part as clearly as if she'd shouted it.

Her injured hand pressed briefly against his injured side and he hugged her to him without another word.

On an emotional level he absorbed her faith in him and _them_; felt strengthened and awed by it.

On that base level of pure selfish survival instinct he knew he would do every God blessed thing in his power and beyond to see that _they_ did make it.

* * *

><p>AN: When I wrote and posted Chapter 12, I was so excited because my muses had reawakened to this series and I suddenly saw the end of it. I could hear and speak and visualize it, it was that close and I was determined to get it written asap. This chapter wasn't that end, but I have to say after having written this it kind of feels like a good end. Doesn't it?

But, no, I can't do it because all along this has been one of my story ideas where there is actual Caryl sex and I will WRITE THAT before I am done.

Dangit.

Alamo Girl, much of this - in 13 & 14 - is the belated interweaving of many of our email exchanges re: the Shane dynamic toward Carol after 2x08 "Nebraska" and that little arm washing moment they had.


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